Karam Prakash
New Delhi, January 10
As India gears up for the entry of Oxford, Yale and Harvard to open their campuses in the country, educationalists fear further privatisation of higher education, and collapse of the state universities.
Entire exercise of creating room for foreign universities—though, not by design—will be at the cost of state-run educational institutes, opine the experts.
Higher education experts believe the government should focus on strengthening its own existing higher education institutes.
Prof Arun Grover, former vice chancellor, Panjab University, Chandigarh, believes the move would make higher education very expensive. “We have already shrunk the space for the state universities in the domain of higher education, creating room for foreign will further shrink it. Foreign campuses will be able to cater only to a few students. The fees in these foreign campuses will be much higher, and won’t cater—in an intrusive way—to the needs of higher education.”
He said, “The government is not paying attention to the state universities. In the name of so-called new education policy, the government is neither strengthening the universities nor making higher education institutes inclusive.”
The Union Grants Commission (UGC) on Thursday released its first draft for foreign higher education institutes in India to set up their campuses in the country. Foreign universities will have complete autonomy over fees and criteria for admission intake.
Prof Arvind, vice chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala, said, “I don’t see what is good about bringing foreign universities here. Instead, we should be strengthening our own public universities ndash; which have a lot of potential. The UGC should focus on Indian universities.”
“We should introspect why we are not world leaders in higher education. This was the one sector where India could have done a lot better,” Prof Arvind said.
He said the UGC should explain how much money of the GDP they had been spending on higher education.
May not be many takers
This programme has been at the discussion level as early as during the UPA-1 government. And experience shows there were not many institutes interested.
Meanwhile, Prof Surinder Jodhka, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said, “This proposal has been in the pipeline for long. However, not many foreign universities are enthusiastic to come to India.”
He, too, believed there was a need to improve the existing higher education institutions in the country.
