**3. Education is an agent of change**

Education is an agent for social change, economic development, and poverty control that meets the various social, physical, economic, intellectual, and emotional needs and conditions. Else higher education is a medium through which social constraints and deprivation can be addressed. Education helps in the analysis of the challenges and possibilities for the deprived communities – Dalits and Bahujans – in gaining larger access to the higher education system. The importance of affordability, equity, quality, and accountability are the main pillars of higher education.

Moreover, the experiences of people from marginalized in the higher educational institutions are needed to properly addressed, given its sociological and psychological implications are subjects of the policy intent. Understanding inaccessibility to education is another form of marginalization that impacts an individual's well-being. Empowering marginalized communities in India seeks to examine the potential of higher education to overcome inequality and the urgent need to create a more inclusive and equitable pedagogy ([23], pp. 10–12).

Resources and teachers are significant components of an education system. Free and critical thinking was considered necessary for the growth of knowledge and improved as tools for obtaining meritocracy. Higher education institutions (HEIs) enjoyed autonomy in designing content and methods of teaching and evaluation. The latter half of the 1980s experienced a surge of policies in India leading to a new economic system. India tried to construct a consensus-based policy of marketability of education generally profitable. The new liberal economic regimes treat education as a commodity that is consumed in the process of production of human resources. As we know that educational institutions are powerful cultivators of subjectivities. Neo-liberalism sees that the education process should be decided by the market.

Therefore, the process of creation an education system along the lines of the market is cohered with the process of creating subjectivities that will respond to market demand only. The policies are being framed in accordance with the demands of the

corporate sector and it is has a deeper connection with governance by serving the agenda of social fragmentation. Corporate-backed education policies are not determined by some essential segment of the social structure. Not only economic motive but also restructuring society behind neo-liberalism determined the norms of education content and curriculum. Social excellence is viewed as a combination of individual and institutional excellence. If an excellent person would perform at the maximum level of his ability produce not only an excellent institution but excellent students also.

Higher education has become subdued to the corporate forces where students are treated as a commodity. The tendency of higher education is towards serving to a market-based knowledge economy and educational institutions are ranked according to corporate-linked standards instead of serving to social and nation-building needs. This tendency will lead to higher education towards mediocrity that will become a threat to the future of India and its citizens. Education reforms should be aimed at building an educated and inclusive society prepared to meet social needs. It would argue that online education generates opposition to social integration. One more argument may be against online education that it prevents HEIs from functioning as centers for the growth of social capital reducing criticality.

The intent for changes in the higher education system came from corporates in the 2000s in a report titled Report on a Policy Framework for Reforms in Education, prepared by the "Special Subject Group on Policy Framework for Private Investment in Education, Health and Rural Development" of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry, Government of India. This report was prepared in the direction of corporate leadership; it was intended towards transforming India into a "competitive yet cooperative knowledge society" by restructuring the education system. It stressed on the formation of knowledge resources that would be competitive and innovative in order to provide the country with an edge in the global ear of the knowledge economy [24].

The report advocated a common national structure for learning content and common entrance tests based on national parameterized tests. This policy was intended to adopt uniform course content for all the HEIs would necessarily ensure the growth of a pool of cheap personnel for the corporate world. A common entrance would also ensure uniform scalability across the HEIs that can be designed according to the requirements of the corporate sector. The report stressed on a corporate-intended education system and production of human resources in accordance with the requirements of the market. It sought the transformation of HEIs into factory sheds producing reproducible human labor, instead of promoting critical thinking that would be relevant for social progress.

The report that wanted to ban political activities in campuses is an example of a purposive plan of alienating the HEIs from social relevance. The report also recommended an institutional rating system that would ensure that the HEIs grow according to some specifically designed parameters. Regarding the method of teaching the report emphasized on the institutionalization of distance education. The weakness of the universities has become particularly critical with the rise of a knowledge economy as the HEIs become less capable of providing the youth with what they need. The suggestion comes from many corners that the institutions need to take advantage of the jobs in a growing and rapidly changing market. The report also suggests to the institutionalization of distance education.
