3. Foreign Universities in India.

Will Foreign Universities Come to India?

For decades, the country has sent its best and brightest away to study, sometimes never to return. Now leaders want the schools to come to them

For decades, India's whiz kids with the financial means have packed up and headed off to foreign universities for their higher education. Many never come back, creating a huge diaspora of talent abroad. Around 150,000 students are currently studying in the U.S., Britain, Australia, and elsewhere. An additional 100,000 depart every year to pursue foreign degrees at a cumulative cost in tuition and housing of about $4 billion on average every year.

But what if the best universities—such as Yale, Stanford, Oxford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the London School of Economics—could more easily set up campuses, hire faculty, and conduct research in India? It would open up world-class education and managerial training to a wider swathe of Indian society, where the number of college degrees on a per capita basis is low compared with China. A fast-track economy such as India's needs a deep pool of skilled managers to secure its economic future.

READ MORE

AICTE announces new regulations for foreign universities in India

AICTE has published a notification (dated May 16, 2005) on its web site annoucing revised regulations for the entry and operation of foreign universities/institutions imparting technical education in India. But the notification ends with a statement saying "The Regulations shall be subject to suitable review in the light of the recommendations of the C.N.R. Rao Committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development on this subject."

READ MORE



Foreign universities in India

READ HERE


Bringing foreign universities to India, Tuesday, Nov 14, 2006

FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES outside India play a large role in the Indian higher education scene. They attract many thousands of Indian students to their campuses each year — 80,466 Indians enrolled in U.S. institutions alone in 2004-05 and at least eight other countries actively recruit Indian students. Graduates of accredited foreign institutions play important roles in the development of India upon their return home. Imagine what greater opportunities would be available to Indian students if accredited foreign institutions offered degree programmes in India to expand access to higher education to Indian students!

The attraction of study abroad for Indian students, as a supplement to the Indian higher education available within India, is bound to continue for the foreseeable future. For most students, the motivation is to attain the best possible education. Competition for admission to India's best institutions is very intense — about two per cent of those taking admission tests for the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management gain admission — and other high-quality education options are needed for the many talented students who are turned away from these and other premier institutions. Moreover, the Indian student population is growing at a fast pace, and Indian institutions strapped for funds will be hard-pressed to create seats to accommodate the demand.

Beyond the issue of access to quality higher education, Indian educators recognise the need to supplement Indian content-rich curricula with activity-based learning and to bridge the gap between academia and industry. With a booming economy in the service sector industry, the time is right to prepare graduates for tomorrow's careers. Reports have circulated that only one in four engineering graduates in India are employable in the IT-enabled services industry. An article titled "Skills Gap Hurts Technology Boom in India" in The New York Times on October 19, 2006, said the rest were found to lack required technical skills, English fluency, teamwork skills or oral presentation skills.

Many educators acknowledge the need for change in Indian institutions to increase focus on life-long learning, which will result in even larger numbers of students — beyond the usual 19-22-year-old cohort — seeking admission to higher education institutions, whether in India or abroad. Indeed, we see the theme of the need for rapid expansion of a quality higher education sector stated in a recent Government of India report. The five most important issues facing higher education in India have been identified as access and equity; relevance; quality and excellence; governance and management; and funding, according to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development, 172nd Report on University and Higher Education submitted on May 22, 2006. Entry of accredited U.S. educational institutions has the potential to partially respond to all of these needs. The Committee Report, Section X, expresses caution about entry of foreign educational institutions, however. The report states concerns rather than acknowledging potential opportunities. The Committee notes the lack of a database of foreign educational institutions in the country and the prospect of entry by unqualified educational institutions, and observes that even good foreign institutions may adopt double standards in establishing institutions abroad. The report calls for the establishment of a body to oversee all activities of foreign universities/institutions.

READ MORE