cover story Pandora’s Box rather than solve the current problems in the education system. In the words of Philip G. Altbach, a professor at Monan University and the director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, USA, who studied the Chinese experience closely, the biggest fear is that if not regulated effectively, the Bill could let in more “pests than guests”. As Dr Asha Gupta, the director at the Directorate of Hindi Medium Implementation at the University of Delhi, in a presentation—Cross Border Higher Education: India’s Response—points out that the Indian middle-class craze for “foreign degrees” remains unabated. This often results in students not verifying antecedents of the collaborating foreign university. A prime case being the Indian Institute of Planning and Management in Delhi, which has repeatedly come under legal scrutiny for its affiliations with unaccredited B-schools from overseas. Given that so much foreign activity— and much of it clearly dubious—is already happening, there is little choice for government than to introduce regulations. Indeed, the stated objective of the 2007 draft of the Bill was to curb the entry of foreign institutions which may be “resorting to various malpractices to allure and attract students, particularly in smaller cities and towns.” Bhushan is apprehensive that the new Bill may lead to crass commercialisation of education in India given that overtly for-profit foreign university chains, like Apollo International, are already in the country. And, it is second rung and third rung foreign institutions that are evincing interest in entering India—not the Ivy League. Agrees Professor Yash Pal, asking, “Have you ever heard of a great foreign university transplanted somewhere else? Just see, only the run-of-the mill universities will come here, if the Act is allowed.” The educational doyen feels that India has enough resources to provide learning on its own steam and foreign universities have no place here. But those supporting the entry of foreign institutions have a ready counter
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Edu Tech February 2010
“Licence Raj Needs To Be Nipped In EDU: What are the salient features of the Foreign Education Institutions Bill? Chandra: The Bill provides a timebound approval procedure of application by Foreign Education Institutes (FEIs), and subsequent notification of Foreign Education Provider (FEP), involving the registrar, commission, statutory authorities, advisory board, and the central government. The Bill lays out an elaborate procedure to scrutinise credibility of FEIs, before granting them permission to ensure that only established institutes, providing quality education in their home country, set up shop in India. The central government may grant approval after receiving the advice from the commission, which in turn will have to rely on the registrar’s report and act on the advice of concerned statutory authorities.
Central government is empowered to reject the application for the grant of approval by recording reasons in writing. The provision, if effectively complied with, may keep away rogue providers. It is proposed that the foreign education providers imparting technical, medical and legal education will be regulated by the respective statutory authorities already in place in India. This would ensure that the foreign educational institutes, notified to establish institutes of higher education, follow the educational standards and practices prescribed by the statutory authorities for the respective technical fields. The Bill also seeks the disclosure of details relating to fee, admission process, seats and course syllabus. Details of the experiences of teaching faculty, pay and emoluments of staff and teachers also need to be revealed, along with administrative and physical infrastructure details, in the FEP prospectus, which needs to be published. The proposal to regulate the surplus revenue generated by FEP to be invested in the education institutions established by such FEP in India would act as a check as there will be no repatriation of profits. This provision would deter the institutes and universities whose primary motive is guided by profit or market alone. In case the
Jayshree Navin Chandra, Managing Associate, ZEUS Law Associates, New Delhi
argument. They cite how India’s blue chip institutions, the IITs and IIMs, were actually created with foreign help. MIT was involved in the creation of IITs and BITS Pilani, while Harvard assisted the birth of the IIMs.
The pro-Bill lobby points to Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore that have successfully attracted the best campuses to their country and demonstrated that foreign-sourced, in-country provision is a more cost-effective method for educating students.