The India China Institute had the great fortune recently to host one of India’s premier education scholars in India, Sukhadeo Thorat. His areas of research include agricultural development, rural poverty, institution and economic growth, problems of marginalized groups, economics of caste system, caste discrimination and poverty, human development, education, the issue of slums, labor market discrimination, and the economic ideas of Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Professor Thorat is currently professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the Chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, both in New Delhi, India.
His talk focused on the state of higher education in India today, as well as some of the recent trends over the past two decades, with an emphais on how gender, caste, class background and geographic location impact access to and support for education. He also discussed some of the changes in the educational landscape, including the increase of private, English-language based universities, or what are called “deemed universities” in India.
You can watch the whole talk below on our YouTube channel.