FDI in studies creates divide

Updated on: Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Confederation of Indian Industry has prepared a document on foreign direct investment (FDI) in higher education and some Tamil Nadu educationists feel it’s time foreign universities are allowed to set up campuses in India, but there are sceptics too.

Welcoming the proposal, G. Viswanathan, VIT University chancellor and president of Education Promotion Society for India, said the Centre should allow foreign players and FDI in higher education.

“I have seen several students joining colleges and universities in non-English-speaking countries such as China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to pursue medicine, but not India,” he said.

Ruing absence of FDI in medical education, Dr Viswanathan sought foreign help to enhance the quality of higher education in the country. He said foreign universities offering hefty pay packets were denying Indian Institutes of Technology and top universities such as VIT best faculty.

Thangam Meganathan, chairperson of Rajalakshmi Group of Institutions, said nowadays, 90 per cent of students were funding own education. “Students should be given the freedom to chose the kind of education they want. The government should allow higher education institutions to join hands with foreign universities and attract FDI,” she said.

Dr Meganathan demanded that the government allow colleges to affiliate with more than one university, so that students get a wider choice.

In a market-driven economy there is a need for FDI as it can enhance quality of education by attracting highly competent foreign faculty, she reasoned.

University of Madras vice-chancellor G. Thiruvasagam, however, said: “We already have a good rapport with foreign universities for exchange of faculty, students and research inputs. It is not that these things happen only if you have FDI.”

Prof Thiruvasagam expressed the apprehension that foreign investors might impose conditions that may not be acceptable to the Indian constitution.

FDI in studies creates divide

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