IMPORTANCE OF OER INIMPROVING HIGHER EDUCATION.

The rapid growth of OER provides new opportunities for teaching and learning, at the same time, they challenge established views about teaching and learning practices in higher education. In Indian economy, from the last two decades,it has achieved much more than what the world has expected. The quality of life has improved both in rural and urban set up. The reason of this high achievement is due to good policies and programmers started by government.  Another reason being, common man has the access to education specifically at school level. But, the task of converting large huge human resource (16-24 years) into knowledge workers’ rests on the kind and quality of tertiary education being provided to the common man. If we look at the past decade (2001-2011). As per the latest figure given almost 19% of total population in the age group of 18-23 are studying in higher education in almost 712 universities, 36,671 colleges and 11,445stand-aloneeducational  institutions  in management,  technical, medical  and  other  professional  institutes(Educational  Statics  at  a  Glance,MHRD,2014). With such a huge expansion what is required is the quantitative and qualitative expansion of resources-infrastructural, educational, technological human and more so economical. Government has opened the private sector and thinking on the lines of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in education sector.  Higher education and Research which will pave new way to the higher education sector. Since  equity,  access  and  quality  in  higher education  is  the  prime  concern  of  the  government,  therefore  government  has realized that  Information  and  Communication  Technology(ICT) sector  will  play  a  crucial  role  in expanding  higher  education and  that’s  why it has launched  nationwide centrally sponsored mission  called National Mission  on  Education  through Information  and Communication Technology (NMEICT) and National Knowledge Network (NKN) through which universities are as well as colleges of higher education will be connected. National Knowledge Network will connect all the universities whereas along with other projects related to education like National Programme on Technology enhanced Learning (NPTEL), Eklavya (An open educational portal of Indian Institute of Bombay), National Repository of Open Educational Resource (NROER), etc has been launched to not only to connect the higher education institutes but also help the stakeholders to access the good  quality educational  resources  material. This paper examines the innovative and resourceful open education resources and the importance of open education resources in education. Therefore, OER present arange of opportunities to institutions of higher education, teachers and learners of higher education as well as administrators of higher education.