Road map must for foreign varsities

Updated on: Monday, July 06, 2009

The debate on whether to allow foreign universities into India or not, and the prospective regulations that could be evolved for opening up the Indian higher education sector to international players is bound to reach a crescendo in the next few weeks.

Already, the Union HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal, has made known his mind that he plans to open up the sector. But then he has a task on hand while discussing with his core team the pros and cons of such a policy decision.

The Yash Pal committee report on the rejuvenation of Indian higher education has for example strongly emphasized the need for creating a National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) as an apex regulatory body. Its role, according to the report would be to create an enabling environment for universities to become self-regulatory bodies, to serve as a premier advisory body for government and a think tank for the entire country on policy issues, to prepare and present reports about higher education sector, to provide a vision for the sector to be reflected in a curriculum framework, benchmark universities, compare them with global-level institutions, evaluate costs of education, establish norms and process for entry and exit of institutions and ensure measures to improve governance of universities, etc.

So clearly, the NCHER would, according to Chairman Yash Pal, be a constitutionally empowered body to take decision on allowing foreign universities.

But in its final report, the committee has sounded some cautions to government on this issue. Noting that “giving an open license to all and sundry carrying a foreign ownership tag to function like universities in India, most of them not even known in their own countries, would only help them earn profit for their parent institutions located outside or accrue profit to the shareholders. If the best of foreign universities, say amongst the top 200 in the world, want to come here and work, they should be welcomed. Any decision in this regard has to be taken with utmost care keeping in mind the features, which are essential for an institution to be called a University. Such institutions should give an Indian degree and be subject to all rules and regulations that would apply to any Indian University.”

Earlier, in its 2006 report, the National Knowledge Commission, stated that the top ranking foreign universities should have an opportunity to come to India, since the significance of competition from outside … must not be underestimated. But the NKC too (like the Yash Pal committee report) wanted appropriate and clearly spelt out policies for entry of foreign institutions so that good institutions come in and sub-standard institutions face disincentives for entry here. "However, a level playing field should be ensured and all rules that apply to domestic institutions should also be applicable to foreign institutions. At the same time, policies must encourage rather than discourage Indian institutions to create campuses abroad not as business opportunities but as competition opportunities in their quest for academic excellence…."

So, the way forward for Mr. Sibal is clear. He needs to create the NCHER that will evolve the norms for entry of foreign institutions.
However some of the private Indian players are apprehensive that well-known institutions coming into India could take away the existing crop of good academics from them as the new entrants can afford to pay more as salary to teachers. The panacea they suggest is the foreign universities should be allowed only to open PG courses in India, that too limited to certain areas where academic demand far exceeds supply. Slowly as the local universities too develop a certain level of maturity, the foreign universities could be allowed to open up for UG courses also.

To address such apprehensions, the proposed National Commission should act as a single point of entry. Its expert body should come out with clear academic, administrative and financial norms for foreign entrants and how they can work or tie up with Indian providers. It should process applications for entry, evaluate the potential entrants for their core capability, quality and reputation, make sure that they bring in their own professors and other teachers for the initial phase. Then the Commission or its empowered expert group would permit such selected entrants to conduct road shows in different Indian towns and monitor their marketing mechanism or the promises held out to students.

Also, the Commission's experts can moderate any talks for tie ups between the foreign and local university heads. Thus, it is clear that only a strictly monitored regulatory system can ensure that the best of foreign players enter Indian shores and the interests of Indian players are fully protected.

Road map must for foreign varsities

More Education news