Paper short abstract:

Digital initiatives have been seen as a viable option to achieve three cherished goals in higher education in India i.e. access, equity and quality. To make this happen, India needs capable digital leaders. This paper presents a plan for capacity building of digital leaders in higher education.

Paper long abstract:

India is one of the most largest and vibrant system of higher education in the world with 993 Universities, 51649 colleges, 37.4 million students, and 1.41 million teachers. Higher education is supposed to raise educational attainment levels, and provide skills to aspiring youths to contribute immensely for economic growth and development of Indian society. The role of higher education becomes much more important considering that among the total population of India (1.33 billion), 600 million are under the age of 25. But providing quality higher education at affordable rates for every aspirant is a herculean task. Fortunately, digital initiatives have been seen as a viable option to achieve three long cherished goals in higher education in India i.e. access, equity and quality. To make this happen, India needs digital leaders in higher education, and these leaders can be any one i.e. teachers, students, educational administrators, etc. Extending these arguments, this paper presents a plan for capacity building of digital leaders in higher education sector. To place current scenario into context, paper first provides an overview of current digital initiatives in higher education sector in India and introduces some key facts about the country, and afterwards deals with three important issues i.e. i) need for developing digital leaders in higher education sector in India, ii) challenges of developing digital leaders for higher education sector in India, and iii) strategies for leadership capacity building for promoting sustainable digital initiatives in higher education sector in India.

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