SOUL: An Institutional Transformation Framework for Indian Higher Education

The Indian Higher Education sector has made remarkable progress in the last few years in terms of capacity expansion and improving the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) significantly. Out of the three stated objectives of the national higher education policy, equity and access have been achieved to a large extent, while excellence remains confined to a few pockets. Quality concerns reiterated by reports from government agencies, studies by industry bodies and manifested in rapidly declining student enrolments persist. Therefore, there is an urgent need for institutions to transform themselves to create value for their stakeholders. It will help successfully navigate the challenges facing the higher education sector. We present SOUL (Strategy, Operations, Urgency, Leadership), a comprehensive institutional transformation framework customized for Indian academia, enabling leadership teams to introduce validated interventions and global best practices at their institutions in a phased manner. SOUL is novel, relevant and timely, especially in the Indian context considering that disruption and crisis create opportunities for institutional transformation.