Madhya Pradesh is fast emerging as arepository of skilled human resource. Investment on buildingup of human capital is showing upward trend. The StateGovernment has focused attention on improving the quality ofhigher education along with its expansion by promotingpublic-private partnership. Legislation for encouragingestablishment of private universities is expressive ofstate's resolve to become a hub of higher education.The 11th five year plan has set its goals as 'expansionof enrolment in higher education with inclusiveness, qualityand relevant education, with necessary academic reforms inthe university and college system. The goal is to set Indiaas a nation in which all those who aspire to good qualityhigher education can access it, irrespective of their payingcapacity'. Expansion, inclusion and quality are thusthe three cornerstones of our national goals in education.The Government has set a target of 21percent Gross EnrolmentRation (GER) by the end of the twelfth plan (2017) with aninterim target of 15 percent by the end of the eleventh plan2012. This seems a highly ambitious aim considering thepresent GER of 12.4 percent. The Government of MadhyaPradesh convened a conference 'Higher education inMadhya Pradesh the way forward' on 3rd of October 2011in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. The conference brought togetherkey policy makers, academic faculty and stakeholders in thefield of education to discuss the needs of higher educationin Madhya Pradesh, and options for improvement andexpansion. The Government of Madhya Pradesh is considering areform of their higher education system, focusing first onthe governance and legislative framework. In Madhya Pradesh,there are currently 15 universities, of which 9 are public.Further, there are over 300 colleges, a few of which havebeen awarded autonomous status and centers of excellence bythe University Grants Commission (UGC), and the remainingare affiliated colleges. Governance plays an important rolein the performance of any organization involved in publicservice. In a federal country with a written Constitutiongoverned by rule of law, every activity in the public sphereis to be organized according to the framework prescribed bythe law and the Constitution. It is therefore important toappreciate the legal framework under which higher educationis organized in India and to begin the reform proposals withthe law on the subject.