Pathways of Indian Students Transition Through Higher Education: Why do they differ?

Differential pathways followed by the students deserve more attention due to the development of school education in general and higher education in particular during the last two decades in India. Due to the consistent efforts by the Indian government at the school education level, students arriving at the doors of higher education institutions are no longer homogeneous. As a result, the diversity of students in higher education institutions leads towards diversification of pathways followed by the heterogeneous segments of students. There is a real shortage of studies which have researched the students’ differential pathways through higher education in general and specifically in the Indian context from the micro perspective. This study examines the decision-making process and differential trajectories followed by the students during the transition from secondary to higher education. The methodology of the present study involves a mixed-method approach and data was collected from a sample of 900 senior secondary students. A Self-structured questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were used for the collection of data. The findings reveal that the decision-making process of transition through higher education is complex and involves different stakeholders and timelines in the Indian context.