“Expansion”, “excellence” and “equity” is what Indian higher education strives for – every university student should have a high quality educational experience, while every person dreaming of higher education should have a right to enter a university. Tuning India brings together 15 Indian universities, along with 5 EU partners, to try and make this dream come true. Academics, students, graduates, employers and other relevant stakeholders from the five sub-regions of the country will be involved in the process of (re)designing degrees to make them learner-centred, comparable and compatible, as well as relevant for the society and the labour market. Both the design and the implementation of the innovative degree programmes are to happen during the project time. The change will start with the four selected subject areas – Law, IC, Medicine and Teacher Education, but – thanks to the Tuning Community for India and the Tuning Centres – is expected to go well beyond these areas and well beyond the 15 universities directly involved in the Tuning India project. Already during the project lifetime, the 3 National Dissemination Seminars, over 60 Local Workshops and 2 International Policy Forums, one in India and the other in the EU, will permit to make the Tuning India project a truly nation-wide and even international initiative. Apart from brining curricular innovation and capacity-building opportunities, the Tuning India project will also collect and share widely empirical data on importance and the current level of achievement of key generic and subject specific competences, on the one hand, and on the student workload, on the other.
Expansion, excellence and equity is what Indian higher education strives for; every university student should have a high quality educational experience, while every person dreaming of higher education should have a right to enter a university. To make sure all the students who enrol in Higher Education institutions across the country benefit from high-quality educational experience, Indian Higher Education needs to develop comparable and compatible degree programmes, and build the capacity of university teachers improving the quality of education and teaching. The project is based on the results of a Feasibility Study launched by the EC in cooperation with the Indian Government to find to what extent a Tuning project can contribute to, and be appropriate within, the strategic objectives of the reform of Higher Education in India. Recommendations formulated as a result of the interviews with members of Indian national authorities, associations key to Indian Higher Education and academics from universities across the country (South, East, Centre, North and West), as well as the desktop research, were validated in a final seminar by members of the Indian universities, regional and national governmental organisations in Delhi in October 2014. The Indian universities in the consortium participated in the Feasibility Study, or were recommended by those who did, as key actors of the Indian Higher education. The EU partners participated in different Tuning initiatives in different regions of the world.Hence, the Tuning India brought together 15 Indian universities along with 5 EU partners. Academics, students, graduates, employers and other relevant stakeholders from the five sub-regions of the country have been involved in the process of (re)designing degrees to make them learner-centred, comparable and compatible, as well as relevant for the society and the labour market. The project started with the four selected subject areas – Law, ICT, Medicine and Teacher Education, but thanks to the Tuning Community for India and the Tuning Centres is going well beyond these areas, and well beyond the 15 universities directly involved in project activities. Already during the project lifetime, the 3 National Dissemination Seminars, over 60 Local Workshops and 2 International Policy Forums permitted to make the Tuning India project a truly nation-wide and international initiative. Apart from brining curricular innovation and capacity-building opportunities, the Tuning India project also collected and shared wide empirical data on importance and the current level of achievement of key generic and subject specific competences, and on the students’ workload. Thus, the outcomes of the project are of high relevance for all higher education institutions in India.