Historical Background and Development of Higher Education

In the twilight years of the twentieth century when we are poised to leap across some kind of a „time-barrier‟ into a new era, some reflection and objective transevaluatory analysis of the higher educational system in the shape of a educational system in the shape of a stock-taking exercise or examining the balance sheet is not only apt but eminently desirable for drawing appropriate lessons for the future. Mankind at the threshold of twenty-first century is being forced into terra incognito of an unknown tomorrow. We are passing through an era of rapid and complex transition in every aspect of life-culture, politics, economy, science and education. Accelerant change with menacing swing is surging across much of the world today washing over entire humanity in a relentless fashion. The world is confronting new challenges, new conditions, new spheres of activity. Strange, often bizarre environment has been created in which our old value systems smplinter and clash, institutions that served well fade into irrelevance, and relationships and interactivity at individual, social, national and international levels acquire new form, shape and meaning. The times which herald, what Alvin Toffler calls, “the death of industrialism and the rise of a new civilization”, also alter the supposedly secure footing upon which we have been treading in the field of higher education. Keywords— Higher, Education,