Social Responsibility of Higher Education

Recognising that the concept of ‘social responsibility of higher education’ can be interpreted in two intricately related ways, viz., responsibility of higher education institutions to society and responsibility of society to higher education, which mutually reinforce each other, this article largely focuses on the former. While social responsibility is an important function of universities, this remained implicit for a long period. As universities tend to increasingly ignore this function and concentrate on teaching and research, the need to explicitly recognise and take up social responsibility as a major function of universities is highlighted. The article highlights how the social responsibility role is intricately related to the other two functions of higher education—teaching and research. Reviewing the efforts of the Government of India in this regard, the article underscores the need to send a message to the entire academic community and society that society values the contribution of higher education to social progress. This also needs to be given proper weightage in the assessment of performance of universities and students.