People's Democracy

EDITORIAL

Stop Unregulated Entry Of Foreign Universities

ON the heels of the damaging controversial rules drawn up by the Ministry of Commerce for the establishment of the Special Economic Zones in the country comes its proposals for deregulating higher education in India as a part of the ongoing negotiations on trade in services at the WTO. The Trade Policy division of the Department of Commerce has circulated a paper titled “Trade in Educational Services” arguing for a virtual no holds barred laissez faire approach to legalise the entry of foreign educational institutions. True to its commercial style, the ministry refers to such institutions as foreign education providers (FEPs). It would be dangerous for India to provide access to such FEPs without any legal framework of regulation. This is particularly so when, thanks to the economic policies of liberalisation, Indian educational space is being flooded by ‘fly by night operators’ who are establishing ‘degree mills’. To put the matter in perspective, it is necessary to underline that nobody can object to the idea of improving the quality of our higher education with appropriate interplay with foreign institutions of repute. After all, our own IITs emerged through collaboration with some of the best institutions. But allowing foreign universities and other institutions a no holds bar entry is another matter.

Currently, India has one of the lowest coverage of higher education in the world. Only 10 per cent of our population of the relevant age group (17 to 23 years) enrols for higher education. Needless to add that this situation has to change drastically, if India were to truly aim at emerging as a powerful knowledge economy in the future. Further, with 54 per cent of India’s population being below the age of 25, the strengthening of the educational system is of vital importance for our country’s future. Obviously, this can only be done with massive increases of public investment in education. The UPA’s Common Minimum Programme had promised to increase educational outlays to 6 per cent of the GDP from the current less than 3 per cent. Unfortunately, adequate attention is not being paid to this promise. However, it would be both dangerous and foolhardy to try and meet the situation by offering unregulated access to foreign institutions. 

The low enrolment in higher education in India is despite the fact that we have the third largest higher educational system in the world after China and the USA. The total number of institutions is 17,973 in India. Of these, 348 are universities (70 of these being private) and 17,625 are colleges (7,650 being private).

It must also be noted that many countries in the world which allow foreign institutions, vigorously protect their national interests and public policy priorities. Just to cite a few of the best examples – in Malaysia, where entry of foreign institutions can only be by invitation from the Ministry of Education, such institutions must establish a Malaysian company with majority Malaysian ownership, each institution has to be registered with the government, permission is required to be taken for each new course and foreign programmes offered must be accredited in home country and recognised by appropriate professional association at home; in China, where again entry is by invitation only and only by partnership with Chinese institutions has to be strictly a not for profit objective – reasonable return is allowed for domestic private institutions, the post of president of the university can be held only by a Chinese resident, not less than half directors should be Chinese citizens, the basic language of institution has to be in Chinese, tuition fee may not be raised without government approval, and there is no provision for on line or distance learning; in Singapore, where there is no legal Act to regulate, it has made no offer under GATS on higher education, entry is under a set of guidelines (not public) under which each application is decided on a case to case basis, entry is only on invitation – only elite universities are invited, collaboration is permitted with a local partner, and the foreign provider cannot use terms like university, college, academy; and several other countries. 

The HRD minister, in consultation with the prime minister, appointed a committee under Professor C N R Rao to go into this issue. The CNR Rao Committee cautioned against a hasty approach. Some of its suggestions were: Operation of FEIs only after suitable regulations; approvals in a phased manner; for a limited period followed by a review; provision for a substantial security deposit/corpus fund; initial short term entry for FEIs accredited in home country; monitoring and regulation of FEPs other than universities; no repatriation of surpluses; conditions and regulations are important before we offer under GATS; franchising/off-shore study centres should be discouraged; desirable forms of entry would be twinning, programmatic, collaborations; courses offered should be at par with home country; adequate safeguards against poaching of Indian faculty; public disclosure of fee schedule (to be unchanged for course); entry on the basis of reciprocity.

Ministers of state governments were also consulted by the MHRD in a two-day conference at Bangalore in January 2005. The Ministry’s broad approach towards the question of regulating foreign educational institutions in their operations in India was thereafter put out in the public domain through its website. After wide consultations with distinguished academics, state governments, other stake-holders and, in the light of various pronouncements of the Supreme Court, a draft legislation was prepared on regulating the entry of foreign education providers. 

Unfortunately, vested interests are apparently succeeding in delaying this legislation. This means that the private players will continue to reap a mercenary bonanza for one more year without any regulation. There are, at the moment, 150 foreign institutions of higher education functioning in the country. 

The UPA government should immediately discard its dangerous forays in the direction of allowing unregulated entry of foreign educational institutions in the country. The argument that some 1,40,000 students go abroad annually for higher studies can be no justification for permitting unregulated entry. In fact, the whole concept of private universities must be abandoned in national interest. For every one student who goes abroad, there are 1000 waiting for higher education in India. The UPA government must take the lead in urgently expanding educational facilities as promised.