Delhi: Red carpet welcome

A larger revolution than even in the telecom sector awaits us, commented Kapil Sibal, Union human resource development (HRD) minister, hailing clearance of the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations, Maintenance of Quality and Prevention of Commercialisation) Bill, 2009, by the Union cabinet on March 15. The Bill, first introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 1995, and later revived in 2007 but vetoed by the communist parties, got a fresh lease of life after Sibal included it in his 100-day agenda last year (July 2009). A well-kept secret is that New Delhi had already allowed foreign direct investment in education since 2000. But the new law spells out the terms and conditions of entry and operation of foreign education providers, and specifically vests them with the power to award degrees in India.Passage of the new FEI Bill, sched-uled to be tabled in the forthcoming monsoon session of Parliament, promises to be a stormy affair on lines of the Womens Reservation Bill as the caste-based (Janata Dal and Samajwadi) and communist parties will attempt to sabotage it. However, the UPA-2 government, which has a sufficient majority in both houses of Parliament, is determined to enact the Bill to augment capacity shortages in higher education, as also save an outflow of about $7.5 billon (Rs.33,750 crore) per year of foreign exchange expended by over 100,000 students traveling abroad for higher education.
The provisions of the FEI Bill stipulate an eight-month time bound format for granting approval to foreign institutions to set up campuses on a stand-alone or collaboration basis. Also, to discourage small-time players, the Bill requires foreign universities institutions to deposit a corpus of Rs.50 crore with the UGC or any other regulatory body that replaces it. Moreover as indicated by the lengthy title of the Bill, foreign varsities will be subject to quality audits, restricted to levying reason-able tuition fees, and wont be allowed to repatriate earnings or profits to parent institutions. Surpluses will have to be re-invested in their Indian operations.
Approval of the Bill by cabinet, which portends early passage through Parliament, has been broadly welcomed by academics and educationists in public and private institutions, even as debates on the implications of the Bill — ensuring a level playing field for Indian higher education institutions, possible mass migration of faculty to foreign university campuses, and whether quotaaffirmative action legislation should be applicable to foreign education providers — have commenced in right earnest. For instance the Delhi-based Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI) recently went into a huddle and formed a committee under the chairmanship of former secretary general of Association of Indian Universities, Prof. K. B. Powar, to investigate the fine print of the Bill and present a detailed response to the government.
Meanwhile even if Central and state government sponsored higher educa-tion institutions are likely to experience unlevel playing fields following the belated entry of foreign varsities into Indian education — their tuition fees, affirmative action admission quotas and faculty remuneration are strictly controlled by government — private sector deemed universities seem better prepared to take on imminent foreign competition. We welcome this Bill. It will definitely help to raise standards of education and research in India. Since we have been preparing for passage of the Bill for the past four years, we have already developed our infrastructure and teaching methodologies to match foreign varsity standards, says P. K. Gupta, chancellor of the Noida-based Sharda University.
Prashant Bhalla, senior vice president of Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad, echoes this sentiment. We are not worried. Many existing institutions in India already provide education and infrastructure that matches international standards at tuition fees foreign institutions cant match, says Bhalla.
Behind the red carpet reception by private sector higher education provi-ders to foreign universities, theres a shrewd calculus, says a Delhi-based education consultant speaking on condition of anonymity. Over the past half century Indias venal bureaucracy has acquired such an infamous reputation, that few reputed foreign universities will build campuses in India. Instead theyll be looking for partners and collaborators. And guess wholl benefit most? The better provided varsities. Hence the red carpet, says the consultant.
Either way students benefit, even if belatedly.
Autar Nehru (Delhi)