Higher education in the modern sense of the word is less than 150 years' old. It is true, however, that in the long history of the country, beginning thousands of years before the Christian era, centres of learning have existed in one form or the other. Ancient Nalanda and Taxila Universities have become synonymous with the highest achievements of education in early Indian history; but it is difficult to speak of nature of ancient Indian education with certainty for our information is based on documents of unequal date and unequal value. We know that a definite conception of higher education did exist and that there were some centres of higher learning in ancient India; while some of these centres in the eastern and southern parts of the country had continued their work throughout the middle ages. The Islamic rulers had introduced their culture and education by establishing some schools and colleges in the Middle Ages, which continued to flourish till their power decayed and well before the advancing tide of the British influence.

In the last decade of 18^th century, the British had not paid much attention to the introduction of Western education in Indian schools and colleges.  In the year 1834, Lord Macaulay stated the case for reorientation of education and urged the government to under take the promotion of European literature and science. Under the new system that started in 1835 education rapidly expanded and English Schools and Colleges grew up in different parts of the country. In the wake of enthusiasm that marked the attainment of independence in 1947, there was new awareness of the broader scope of responsibilities that the universities must have in a free country, Government of India appointed the University Education Commission in November, 1948. The report of the Education Commission 1966 perhaps marked a turning point in the history of educational development. The report clearly brought out that education could not be planned piecemeal, sector by sector or scheme by scheme. The report not only identified general and specific goals of education but approached the subject comprehensively and recommended drastic reforms in the educational system necessitated by changing the social, economic and political conditions of the country.  Higher education has seen more and more wider part of the process, foundation of which need to be strengthened. Moreover, the functions of the universities have been viewed in the larger context of the Indian society. As a matter of fact, soon after independence, Pt. Nehru had written on the same lines, when he viewed, “A university stands for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for progress, for meeting even higher objectives. If the university discharges its duties adequately, in the interest of the students, it is well with the nation and the people. But if the temple of learning itself becomes a house of bigotry and petty objectives, the nation will not prosper.” A vast responsibility, therefore, rests on the universities and educational institutions to guide posterity. They have to keep their lights burning and must not stray from the right path even when passion convulses the multitude and blinds many amongst those whose duty is to set an example for others. We are not going to reach our goal through crookedness' or flirting with evil in the hope that it may lead to a good. The right end can never be fully achieved through wrong means. The higher education system in India has grown in a remarkable way, particularly in the post-independence period; to become one of the largest systems of its kind in the world. It is estimated that during the five year plans, there was tremendous pressure of numbers on this system and a large number of additional students were knocking the doors of higher education.

Higher education provides people with an opportunity to reflect on the ethical, social, economic, cultural, moral and spiritual issues facing humanity. It contributes to national development through dissemination of specialized knowledge and skills. It is, therefore, a crucial factor for survival. Being at the apex of educational pyramids, it has a key role to pay in producing teachers for the educational system.

In the developing countries, the planners, administrators, and educationalists have placed great faith in education for transforming traditional attitudes and values and in their stead generating a rational, secular and universal orientation which is believed to facility the modernization or developmental process. Sociologists' interest in education as a factor leading to social change has been a long and continuous one though as Durkhim, not all sociologists have been entirely a great promoter of social change. But be that as it may, in the contemporary sociological scene, the study of the relationship between education and modernization of attitude and values is one of the favourite, persuites of sociologists. Unfortunately this enthusiasm has not produced any significant and insightful analysis concerning the modernization of attitudes and values as a direct consequence of education. The retreat of the state and the advance of the market have changed the national context of higher education. The spread of market is the beginning of an exercise to a significant influence in this area. There are inherent dangers in such commercialization; but there are some opportunities of learning from markets. The gathering momentum of globalization, which has changed the international context, is also a beginning to reshape the higher education. This too has important positive and negative implications for development. Countries need to formulate policies for higher education in the pursuit of development, so as to minimize the changes and capture the opportunities.

Globalisation is the centre stage of contemporary world. It interests almost everyone. Alas!  Education is at the back stage somewhere in the midst of the props. Globalization and education together is a relatively unexpected subject, particularly amongst the economists. The study emphasises interlinks between higher education and development.

Globalisation

Globalisation means different things to different people.  Globalization is used in a positive sense to describe a process of integration in the world economy. It is used in normative sense to prescribe strength of development based on a rapid integration with the world economy.

Globalization and Education

How the process of globalization relates alone to influence the world of higher education! Globalization, for one, is driven by market forces whether the threat of competition or the attraction of profits. For another globalization is driven by the technological revaluation in transport and communication, which has set aside geographical barriers so that distance and time matter a little. Economic analysis enables us to provide a more complete analytical answer. In any economy, education is an integral part of the social infrastructure and an essential component of social consumption. And until not so long, education was mostly produced and consumed within the nationals boundaries. Economists describe it as non-traded. It attributes to education in general and higher education in particular is not significantly different from services as distinct from goods.  Services possess two unique characteristics; first the production of a service and its consumption simultaneously, for services cannot be stored and secondly the producer and the consumer of a service must interact with each other because the delivery of s service requires physical proximity.

Impact of globalization

The spread of markets and the momentum of globalization during the past couple of decades have transformed the world of higher education almost beyond recognition. Market forces driven by the threat of competition or the lure of profit led to the emergence of higher education as a business.

The technological revaluation has led to a dramatic transformation in distance education as a mode of delivery. This is discernible not simply in the national context but also in the international context with a rapid expansion of cross border transaction in higher education. It is clear that markets and globalization are transforming the world of higher education. The ways and means of providing higher education are changing.  Markets and globalization are shaping the content of higher education and exercising an influence on the nature of institutions that impart higher education.

In the world of higher education, markets and globalization are beginning to influence universities and shape education not only in terms of what is researched. In the sphere of teaching there is discernible departure from the liberal intellectual tradition where education was about learning across the entire spectrum of disciplines. Choices of students were shaped by their interests. There was never a perfect symmetry. Even the universities endeavoured to strike a balance across discipline, whether like literature, philosophy, languages, economics, mathematics, physics or life sciences. But this is changing as students and their parents display a strong revealed performance to demand higher education that makes young people employable. The popularity and the availability of courses are thus being shaped by markets. The world of professional education is also being influenced by markets and globalisation.  The examples are engineering, management, medicine and law.  For another globalisation is coaxing a harmonization of academic programmes.

Commercialisation of universities

Commercialisation of universities has been reinforced by the forces of demand and supply. On the demand side, there is a burgeoning desire for higher education which is driven by a combination of individual aspirations and corporate needs in a changed national and international scenario. On the supply side, higher education is dominated everywhere by large public universities, which are somewhat inefficient and are resistant to change. These safeguards implicit in academic freedom and the security guaranteed by tenure appointments, taken together often create situations where teachers and administrators are not quite accountable to students and society. In developing countries the problem is compounded because the opportunities for higher education in public institutions are simply enough. The dangers and the opportunities for universities implicit mark lists and commercialization are presented in somewhat caricature form, if only to highlight their significance.  Universities have continued to provide centres of academic excellence in spite of their structural rigidities and governance structures. This is because the nature of incentives in university system is much more subtle than in corporate hierarchies.

These can be little doubt that the process of globalisastion is exercising a significant influence on the world of higher education. But this is not all. At the same time, there is globalization of higher education which, in turn, has significant implications. They are for people and countries. These are for higher education and development.

Conclusion<

In the world of unequal economic and social opportunities, higher education provides the only access to fairing good, whether we think of people of or countries. Theory and evidence both suggest that the development of physical infrastructure and a social infrastructure, particularly in education are the necessary initial conditions for a country to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of integrating with the world economy in the process of globalization.

At the beginning of the 21^st centaury, it is clear that the wealth of nations and the well-being of humankind will depend on ideas and knowledge, to a significant extent. In the past, it was land, natural resources, labour skills, capital accumulation or technical progress that were the source economic growth and prosperity. In the future, knowledge is bound to be a critical aspect in the process of economic growth and social progress.  Without correctives, the widening gap between the haves and have-nots could then be transformed into a widening gap between those who know and those who know not.

REFERENCES

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