When Amaan Abbas sent his son to Canada two years ago, he had hoped that his son would finish his undergraduate studies, apply for Masters and eventually start his work life there. It was a well-laid out plan except that his son wasn’t ready to chase a foreign degree yet. Three semesters down the line, he is back in India and has enrolled in a private university. Letting go of a foreign degree was too little a price to pay for the 19-year-old who found it “difficult to adjust in the international campus” and found solace back home.
So when the news of the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) proposal to invite top-rung foreign universities to set campuses in India came up, the Abbas household was filled with joy. “For kids such as my son, who want a foreign degree but are not yet ready to leave home, this comes as a boon,” says Abbas, CEO of LawWiser, a Delhi-based legal knowledge platform.
Around a 1,000 km away, Sunita Roy, the head of department, UGC Women’s Studies Centre at Patna University, says the proposal allows students from “less-privileged” backgrounds such as in her state to avail a world-class degree. But her counterpart, Pankaj Mittal, Secretary General of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), an apex representative body with over 900 members, doesn’t share her optimism. “Among several concerns around the proposal, the main one is will it offer a level-playing field?” she asks.
In January, the draft UGC (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023 was unveiled, under which Foreign Higher Education Institutions (FHEIs) will be allowed to set up campuses in India. Initially to run for 10 years, they can decide their own admission process, fee structure and will be allowed repatriation. They can, however, conduct only offline classes and only the top 500 universities (overall or subject-wise rankings) can apply to enter India.
Close on the heels of the UGC announcement, another development, which was brewing for some time, came out. In March, Australia’s Deakin University declared the opening of its first international campus in GIFT city in Gujarat. Another Australian varsity, Wollongong, too is headed to GIFT. UGC has also reached out to Indian missions abroad and is hopeful that more Australian, UK and US universities will be keen to head to India.
This is UGC’s attempt around “internationalisation of education” plan outlined in National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which includes three major reforms—foreign universities to set up campuses in India, Indian universities to set up campuses abroad, and twinning, dual degree and joint degree programmes. African and Gulf countries, Thailand and Vietnam are among the probable locations for Indian universities to establish their offshore campuses, for which regulations would be released in a month.
UGC has set the ball rolling. Are the stakeholders ready?
Of Harvard, Oxford and more
Even as big educational reforms are underway, it still remains a far-fetched dream to expect Harvard or Oxford to set up a campus in India. “An Oxford or Harvard will simply not come because their campuses do not exist anywhere outside their home country. Why would they want to lose their exclusivity which allows them to attract students from all across the globe?” asks Partha Sarathi,
a professor at Delhi University.
Even though UGC rules allow autonomy of the institutions, the caveat remains that it should protect “India’s national interests”. Similarly, there’s no fee cap, but universities need to be “realistic”. According to Deependra Kumar Jha, Chief Academic Officer, L&T EduTech, unless there is academic autonomy, foreign universities will not be keen, adding they may be unwilling to buy real estate for campuses as “land acquisition is a complex issue in India”. “They will also be conscious of their brand image and be sceptical about setting up a full-fledged campus in India,” he adds.
The selection parameters are another area of concern, as besides global ranking, “reputation” will be considered. The UGC chairman in an interview said, “There are universities that may not participate in global rankings but they are reputed such as the institutions that are part of Max Planck Society. All those that participate in global rankings and others of repute will be considered.”
Mittal says there exists no metric to judge the “reputation” of a university. “The regulations provide that a foreign institution may apply if it is “reputed” in its home jurisdiction. However, no metric has been prescribed to determine whether an applicant satisfies this test,” says Rahul Chadha, managing partner, Chadha & Co, a Delhi-based legal consulting firm. Chadha, who counsels multinational clients on strategy for setting businesses in India, also questions how UGC would evaluate conditions such as achieving equivalence with the main campuses in terms of the quality of education.
“It would prove difficult for the top universities to match the aspirational vision of uniform standards, as the reputation of these institutions is built over time. This would turn international campuses into a second-rate option for students who were unable to get admitted into the primary campuses,” says
C Raj Kumar, VC, OP Jindal Global University.
Many FHEIs would still like to know about their profits and fund remittances. The policy states that foreign professors should stay in India for six months. “It will be difficult for someone staying abroad to come to India and live for months to teach here,” says Piyush Kumar, Regional Director, South Asia, and Mauritius, IDP Education, an overseas education consultant organisation.
The India chapter
For a few years now, India has offered twinning or transfer programmes with foreign universities where the student splits time between an Indian and foreign university. Currently, 230 Indian and 1,256 FHEIs are eligible to offer such programmes. “The present gross enrolment ratio (GER) of about 26 percent of the age-specific population has to double in the next decade or two. Higher education in India is thus in an expansive phase,” says Shyam Menon, VC, BML Munjal University, Haryana, while lauding the new proposal.
This is not the first time though that the country has tried to woo foreign universities. Governments in the past—in 1995, 2005-06 and later in 2010—have made attempts to enact similar legislation, but faced opposition from political parties with the most common refrain being “expensive education”. So what ails or hails the higher education landscape?
India’s rapidly growing higher education system is riddled with limited funding, inadequate infrastructure and unequal access.This year’s Budget earmarked Rs 44,094.62 crore for higher education, which has 40 million students enrolled across over 1,000 universities and 42,000 colleges nationally. According to the education ministry’s All India Survey on Higher Education 2020-21, released in February, the gross enrolment ratio (GER) has increased to 27.3 percent from 25.6 percent in 2019-20.
NEP 2020 aims to achieve 50 percent by 2035. “NEP 2020 stipulates various measures to promote India as a global study destination. In effect, UGC is only following NEP’s vision,” says Rasal Singh, Dean, Students’ Welfare, Central University of Jammu. Singh maintains his students are ecstatic about the move as it provides them more options in terms of courses and choice of institution.
Besides opening up India as a global education hub, the intention of the current proposal is also to curtail the flow of foreign exchange going offshore. The day the proposal was announced, Amitabh Kant, India’s G-20 Sherpa and former CEO of Niti Aayog, tweeted, “The number of Indian students opting for higher education abroad would rise to 1.8 mn with their overseas spending rising to $80 bn by 2024. In this context, UGC allowing foreign universities to set up campuses in India with autonomy to decide fee structure is a highly welcome move.”
But it’s a thought that hasn’t reverberated well. “NEP 2020’s vision is around an inclusive education system, but this move is an elitist attempt to attract third-grade world universities to set shop in India,” points out Sarathi. An argument put forth in favour is how the big beneficiary of this move will be students in India. For lesser fee, they will get a world-class education.
But are the FHEIs ready?
According to a survey conducted by the government-funded National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) in Delhi, between December 2020 and February 2021, out of 43 internationally ranked universities, eight—five from the US while one each from Canada, Australia and the UK—expressed desire to open campuses in India. “Many are interested in exploring this opportunity as India is a huge market for them. However, they may adopt a wait-and-watch approach until there is approval of the rules and regulations that govern the international campuses,” says Eldho Mathews, Deputy Advisor-Unit for International Cooperation, NIEPA.
The Great American Dream
India is second to China when it comes to students pursuing international courses. In 2022, as many as 7.5 lakh students left India for higher education. The US, UK, Australia, Ireland and Canada are the top destinations for them. Courses ranging from blockchain to AI, data sciences to energy management, engineering to biotechnology, and public policy to climatology, make foreign shores an attractive destination as India offers limited quality institutions around these popular streams.
The lure for a foreign degree is multi-fold—from studying in a world-class institution to being a ticket to settling abroad. Not to mention the lack of choices students face in India. “Admissions abroad are based on a holistic evaluation (standardised tests, academics and profile) to assess a candidate. This opens up opportunities to aspirants with diverse skill sets who might not stand a chance of getting admitted to Indian institutions because here the selection/rejection approach is based only on examinations,” says Arjun Wadhwa, chief financial officer, CL Educate, a competitive test preparatory platform.
India’s higher education, apart from a handful of colleges and universities, still is unable to match global standards as is evident from the India Skills Report 2023 which puts India’s “highly employable youth” at around 50.3 percent. Currently, the country has 1,113 universities and 43,796 colleges. As per the data shared in Parliament last year, at least 695 universities and 34,734 colleges are operational without accreditation by National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).
“So students who want to study abroad look for world-class universities which are accompanied by great faculty and an advanced curriculum. International students have a multicultural classroom which gives them global exposure. An overseas student can also avail work experience easily because all countries offer post-study work visas,” explains Kumar of IDP Education.
Delhi parent Deependra Goel could vouch for those reasons. When his daughter left for Oxford University to pursue MSc in Pharmacology, Goel knew there were slim chances of her returning. Four years later, she is on her way to fulfilling her American dream. “She is currently waiting for funding for PhD. She couldn’t get her choice of subject last year but we opted to wait rather than find admission in India,” Goel says.
But not everyone crosses the border for academic excellence. Students from Punjab, small towns in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand or Andhra Pradesh often migrate to Canada, Australia or the UK in the hope of finding a strong foothold abroad. “Students from Punjab often take admission in second- or third-rung foreign universities in Canada because they want to settle there. In my institute, 99 percent of students who wish to go abroad intend to do so because they aspire to leave India,” says Arvinder Singh Deol, founder of Harsh Institute of Excellence, an immigration consulting agency with centres in Jharkhand and Punjab.
Hits and misses
With the UGC proposal, India has started a long-held debate. “I don’t see the draft as a big deal except that it will mean more higher learning institutions in India,” says Debananda Mishra, School of Public Policy, IIT-Delhi. According to him, FHEIs will be an extension of top-ranked private universities of India if they are going to be mandated by UGC. “Unless they follow their own curriculum or get international faculty in India, there will hardly be much difference between them and a good private university in India,” he says.
On the positive side, students can benefit from innovative teaching methods, research opportunities, and global exposure. “Our body has shared several concerns with the UGC. Why is it coming as a regulation and not as legislation? Will there be uniform autonomy for all institutions? If there’s repatriation of funds, won’t it be for profit and if so, is that allowed?” asks Mittal of AIU.
On one hand, academicians like Roy and Rasal believe it will bring “competition among faculties” and provide “more opportunities for students” beyond the affluent class, others such Mittal believe it will lead to a dilution of education in the wake of a non-level playing field. For Roy, the larger concern mounts on the cost of education. “We must not forget the aim of this move. This proposal has to look at the interest of students who can’t afford to migrate,” she says.
But it’s hard to think that any university will be interested in coming to India unless they are offered subsidies or allowed to earn profits. On the other side of the debate the arguments also highlight concerns around regulation for FHEIs and whether there would be an accountability towards having international faculty and also what happens to post-study work visas. “Most classrooms will primarily be filled with Indian students, and there are more chances that after they graduate, students will get Indian work experience than international ones,” says Kumar of IDP.
Private universities in India, even though they welcome the move, believe most of their international counterparts would rather establish a partnership than set up a brand-new campus here as it would make it an expensive investment. “To meet the rising demand for a global workforce, internationalisation to higher education is an invaluable policy aspect,” says Raj Kumar. “However, if foreign universities were to establish their campuses with faculty and infrastructure meeting the standards as their parent university, providing them at an affordable cost to Indian students would be a far-fetched dream,” he says. The average figures for education in elite institutions like Harvard or Oxford runs between
Rs 55 to Rs 70 lakh per annum. If it were to set the same standards in India, then the tuition fee would be at least 15 times more than private universities and a hundred times more expensive than public institutions. “These prohibitive costs would contradict the vision of NEP to provide equitable and affordable international education,” he explains.
As the debate continues, the question is would this be the next big thing in higher education in India. Models such as self-funded, private company stake, collaboration with local universities or government funded are the usual mode of entry. “It appears that the foreign universities that operate in their country of origin by establishing a legal entity such as a trust, society, company, etc. may operate in India by forming a similar legal entity. However, express clarity is needed to ascertain the cross-border movement of funds as per the Foreign Exchange Movement Act because the extent and manner of such cross-border fund movement may vary depending upon the legal entity in India,” explains Chaddha.
Who will transcend the Indian borders? Students or universities—the jury is still out on that.
“If there’s repatriation of funds won’t it be for profit and if so is that allowed?”
-Pankaj Mittal, Secretary General, Association of Indian Universities
“The proposal allows less-privileged students to avail world-class degrees provided
it can be availed at affordable cost.”
Sunita Roy, head of department, UGC Women's Studies Centre at Patna University
“The present gross enrolment rate of about 26 percent of the age-specific population has to double in the next decade or two.”
-Shyam Menon, VC, BML Munjal University
“If highly ranked foreign universities were to establish their campuses in India with faculty and infrastructure meeting the same standards as the parent university, providing it at an affordable fee would be a far-fetched dream.”
-C Raj Kumar, VC, OP Jindal Global University
“Students from Punjab often take admission in second- or third-rung universities in Canada because they want to settle there.”
-Arvinder Singh Deol, founder, Harsh Institute of Excellence
“It will be difficult for someone who lives in another country to come to India and live for several months to teach here.”
-Piyush Kumar, Regional Director, South Asia, and Mauritius, IDP Education
“Students will have a plethora of options, and no longer need to compromise on their passion because they were unable to afford it”
-Deependra Kumar Jha, Chief Academic Officer, L&T EduTech