India Education & Career

India plans to open its higher education sector to foreign investment and some of the world’s leading universities next year writes UK’s Financial times. Kapil Sibal, minister of human resources development has been quoted as saying that he aimed to have legislation in place to allow top universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Yale to enter the country by next July. Previous HRD minister had rejected involvement of foreign universities.

Mr Sibal told the Financial Times “I do not see why foreign institutions should not be allowed. Hopefully, by the first academic [term] of 2010, we should have the legislation passed that puts in place a mechanism, framework and regulator for the foreign universities to start functioning.”

An estimated 160,000 -students leave India every year to study abroad, according to the National Knowledge Commission, an advisory group to the prime minister.

On November 25, 2008. Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission during ‘FICCI Higher Education Summit 2008′ had said that there was the need to address affirmative action that the existing universities were adhering to. “If the foreign universities accept that position, then the government would be willing to look at such proposals.

Financial Times quoted Shobha Mishra, head of education and health at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry “The entry barriers [for foreign partners] are a little too high. Universities have to adhere to fee structures and reservation processes.”

Technopak, a Delhi-based consultancy wrote that this year it was found that more than 60 per cent of colleges and 90 per cent of universities in the country were of “poor standard” and “hence the quality of the students is low”.