I read your cover story on the Manipal Education & Medical Group’s ambitious plans to go global (EW January) with great interest. This is the first time I’ve heard of an Indian education ‘exporter’ with established campuses in Dubai, Malaysia, Nepal and Antigua. Of course, the parent Manipal University in Udupi enjoys an excellent reputation across the country, and is perhaps India’s only world-class university in terms of infrastructure and facilities. But it’s a great idea to apply the knowledge and expertise developed over the years in the university to promote institutions abroad. You rightly state in the story that Manipal has mastered the art of providing high-quality professional education at affordable price. Students in developing countries such as Malaysia and Kenya — where the group is building campuses — are sure to appreciate India’s ‘soft power’. Congratulations to Dr. Ranjan Pai and Mohandas Pai for dreaming big! Shivshankar Kumar Delhi Forced flight The January cover story ‘Asia’s premier higher education multinational goes global’ (EW January) was informative. Though the Manipal Group’s global expansion plans need to be applauded and supported, we should be ashamed that such an excellent group of education institutions is being forced to venture abroad, when there is a huge unfulfilled demand for higher education in India. At the Central and state government levels, the procedures and processes for clearing new projects in higher education are so cumbersome and slow that even the most determined edupreneurs get disheartened and frustrated. The Central government has set a target of increasing gross student enrolment ratio in higher education from the current 13 to 30 percent by 2020. There is no way we can get anywhere near this target without participation of the private sector, given that the Central and state governments are bankrupt. Anil Desai Mumbai Brazen subversion It’s shocking beyond belief that the annual household income limit set by the Karnataka government for admission of students under the RTE (Right to Education) quota is Rs.3.5 lakh (Education News, EW January). In a country where over 70 percent of the population survives on less than Rs.20 per day, it’s impossible to understand with what logic the education department has defined households with annual income of upto Rs.3.5 lakh as ‘poor’. The objective of the RTE Act’s 25 percent quota is to provide children from below poverty line households and families access to quality private education. It’s plain as a pikestaff that the s.12 (1) (c) provision is being brazenly subverted by self-serving bureaucrats intent upon grabbing free private education for themselves. Government officials who stipulated this provision must be publicly exposed. Manish Srivastava Bangalore Regulate preschool education! Your December cover story featuring the EW India Preschool Rankings 2012 (EW December) made interesting reading. Obviously a lot of time, money and effort was expended in compiling the rankings of preschools in six major cities. I am sure the Top 20 league tables of preschools will serve as a useful guide to parents. However as an educationist, I am concerned about the unregulated mushrooming…
