On March 15.2010 in Mumbai, the cabinet approved a bill that would allow foreign universities to set up campuses in the country, a major turn around with a former policy in which outside institutions were considered a threat to the education system. Indian government has approved a plan to allow foreign universities to set up campuses and offer degrees in India. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet approved the proposals, which will be debated by parliament this month.
Nearly one in three of India’s 1.15 billion people are under the age of 14, and the Prime Minister has said that improving educational standards is crucial to rapid economic development. Private and foreign corporate investment may soon start to flow into Indian higher education with the government considering a move to reform the policy that hinders such financing. India is reforming its higher education system after listening to concerns that it faces a dearth of qualified graduates.
Every year, many English-speaking Indians head to countries such as the US and Australia to pursue higher education. Though India has a wealth of top notch educational institutions, she is unable to meet the demands for quality education, according to news sources.
Some analysts project that India’s growing economy will face a shortfall of half a million qualified graduates over the next five years.
Union Education Minister Kapil Sibal described the bill as a milestone which will enhance choices, and increase competition and benchmark quality.
As of now, it is not possible for non-profit companies under Article 25 of the Companies Registration Act like industry associations to start up an institution and get university status and recognition from the University Grants Commission.
Educational institutions in India can be set up only by trusts, societies and charitable companies, but the profits cannot be taken out of the institution and be re-invested .This restriction hinders expansion, and simultaneously encourages promoters to resort to creative accounting practices to take out profits from the institutions. According to news sources the United Progressive Alliance government has to provide evidence to clarify this clause.
There is concern in the country that the largely public higher education system will be incapable of coping with the increasing demand for college degrees from a large population of young people, and the bill, is still subject to a decision by Parliament. Sibal has said that in the next 10 years, more than 40 million children will be going to college and thus infrastructure for them has to be provided. Though the government has begun investing more in education, most public universities, like grade schools, have been starved for resources. Private institutions have taken up some of the slack, but a corrupt and tortuous bureaucracy makes obtaining permits difficult. Many private institutions are run by politicians or their families.
The bill would require universities to invest a minimum of about $11 million and would prohibit them from repatriating profits, a possible deterrent that could limit the appeal of an Indian campus to those universities that view overseas programs as money-churning ventures. The bill also eliminates a provision in the current law that does not allow a foreign institution from conferring degrees in India. That law has limited foreign universities to discrete programs, usually in collaboration with Indian institutions.
Georgia Institute of Technology and many similar American universities have expressed interest in starting campuses in India, partly because the country sends about 100,000 students to the United States every year, compared to other countries. The Institute of International education last month, invited and brought together presidents and senior officials from 13 American universities to India for meetings with Indian educators and policy makers.
The bill would also attract universities from Britain, Australia and Canada, which draw many Indian students.
The effort to bring foreign institutions to the country could also thwarted in Parliament, where opposition parties have been adamantly thwarting the will of the coalition government led by the Congress Party. Recently according to news sources, the government was forced to withdraw a controversial bill that would have limited the liability of American nuclear power companies that came to India under the civilian nuclear deal. Many Indian educators are against allowing foreign universities to step in to Indian soil because they are anxious about losing faculty members and students. Moreover, foreign institutions will not have to comply with the admission quotas for minorities that local universities face. In February of this year Mrs.Pratibha Patil said that the Central Government would bring in legislation for a move to allow foreign universities to offer joint degrees in association with Indian institutes, an idea that was strongly supported by Mr.Sibal, the Human Resources Development minister.
On March 16,2010 higher educational institutions, like the prestigious IITs and IIMs, applauded the government’s go-ahead for a bill to allow entry of foreign providers of education in India and sought to lay to rest any threat posed by the institutions from abroad. The director of IIM Lucknow Prof Devi Singh said it is a good move and will help bring internationally reputed education providers to India. Devi Singh said that it is important that the foreign institutions entering India offer the same degrees and diplomas that they are offering in their own countries as this will help to ensure that the certification that they provide in India will have the same value internationally as their current qualification. Foreign universities like Yale have welcomed the Indian government’s move.
For many years the country’s cleverest and most privileged students have migrated to foreign lands to complete their higher education and never looked back.
Many Indian leaders have studied at Cambridge or Oxford in Britain, including the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and the current Prime minister, Mr.Manmohan Singh. About 100,000 Indians study at universities in the United States and 60,000 in other countries, according to the New York-based Institute of International Education. The bill if passed in parliament would be good for India’s economic and social well being, according to Ajit Motwani the institutes’ Indian representative. The bars of standards would be raised in colleges.
Lisa Lapin, Stanford’s assistant vice president, told the Hindustan Times that learning centres and research partnerships had proved valuable in India for the university’s current students and would probably be expanded.
The bill, which stipulates foreign institutes would have to deposit a start-up fund of $11 million, is expected to have difficult passage in parliament. The BJP is not too happy with the current form of the bill and many communist law makers are expected to oppose it, according to news sources. According to them the bill has advantages for only the rich section of society and ignores the weaker sections.
This is a very exciting time for India in developing its higher education structure.
Dream Dare Win
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