A Comparative Study of the Evolution of Higher Education in Three Asian Giants- China, India and Japan

Higher education possesses a distinct position in Education as a whole attribute of human development. While education makes a person understand his life and make it, higher education goes much beyond that and enable her / him understand the environs and make it, or at least influence it. Asia, with all its dramatic contradictions, has been a hub of human activities since ancient period and the testimonies are there that the education especially the higher learning has been at the centre of these activities in some archaeologically known places. India and China are such ethnicities while Japan picked up the thread in the later past and built a strong and assertive ethnic identity there upon. These three nations are still working hard to pursue their obvious national cause of developing their Higher Education setup.. Due to their respective political course, China, India and Japan got their current political status in the end of the fifth decade of the current century almost simultaneously. Since then, their higher learning system are getting shaped based on their sovereign will and now they are considered significant globally for their own reasons, These three nations have had their distinct political and socio-cultural dynamics that shaped their distinctive higher education systems and their consequent human resources. This study tries to understand higher education evolution and base on that analyse their current status along with their respective pros and cons. The study tries to look in to the quantum of people’s participation to higher education and its impact on socio-cultural status in the society.