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Teacher-2-Teacher

Urgent higher education

liberalisation necessity

VEDANT THADANI

HE CRISIS IN UKRAINE HAS ALERTED MANY e BJP government says it wants the
Indians to the plight of their fellow countrymen
who were stranded in that country. The over- country to become a global leader in
Twhelming majority of them were medical students education. is is a pipe dream for a
who had left India to pursue undergrad degrees. Ukraine
isn’t a global leader in education like the US or UK, but still country that can’t provide enough higher
over 20,000 Indians were enrolled in universities there. education facilities to its own youth
Over a million Indian students go abroad for higher edu-
cation annually. That number is projected to reach 1.8 mil-
lion by 2024. While there are a host of reasons for this an- petition from foreign universities would result in Indian
nual exodus, the most glaring is the lack of higher education institutions upgrading their facilities and benchmarking
options in India. As of 2016, only 8.15 percent of citizens themselves with international standards. Only eight In-
held a college degree — an embarrassingly low figure for a dian universities are listed in the global Top 400 of the QS
country proclaiming itself a rising power. World University Rankings 2022, with the highest ranked
Admission into Indian universities is notoriously diffi- IIT-Mumbai at #177.
cult. The competition is ridiculously severe and, in some Other countries have adopted the free market model with
cases, less than 2 percent of admission applications are ac- considerable success. For example, the London School of
cepted. This leaves young Indians with no option but to look Business has a campus in Dubai, and New York University
elsewhere. There is a huge demand-supply gap in accept- has campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. Six American
able quality higher education, and this has been the case for varsities, a British and French university have campuses at
at least the past two decades. the Qatar Education City. Malaysia hosts 11 foreign univer-
Education in India isn’t a free market — the vast majority sities, including India’s Manipal International University.
of schools and universities cannot operate a profit-making Union Budget 2022 proposal to permit foreign univer-
model. The University Grants Commission (UGC) Act, 1956 A sities to set up shop in Gandhinagar’s GIFT City Inter-
does not explicitly restrict for-profit education. But s. 26 (1) national Financial Services Centre (IFSC) has begun yield-
(g) of the Act grants UGC the power to regulate the “mainte- ing results. Some leading foreign universities have initiated
nance of standards and the coordination of work or facilities preliminary discussions with the GIFT City administration
in universities.” This allows the commission to regulate fees and the regulator to establish facilities in IFSC.
in higher education institutions. But these measures are insufficient to solve the crisis
Most universities in India are run by the government or in higher education and their implementation will take
family-run trusts. In the former, the governance structure considerable time. Limiting foreign universities to certain
is wrapped in red tape while in the latter category, illegal special economic zones and allowing them to teach specific
profiteering is not unknown. It is a well-known fact that courses will diminish their autonomy and curtail innova-
a ‘donation’ can secure a seat at numerous schools and tion. Admittedly government needs to regulate higher edu-
colleges in India. Obviously, such payments are not made cation, but liberally. Greater academic freedom will serve
through the banking system, but in cash. The underlying the country better in the long run.
problem is the shortage of higher education institutions for The downside of India exporting over 1 million students
a very young, growing population. to offshore higher education institutions is substantial. At
Take medical education as an example. Every year more least $8 billion (Rs.61,000 crore) per year is spent by In-
than 1.5 million aspirants compete for just 89,395 MBBS dian students abroad. The Indian economy doesn’t benefit
seats in colleges recognised by the National Medical Com- from all the ancillary services that those students avail, like
mission (NMC). That translates into a mere 6 percent being banking, lodging, transport, entertainment, etc. Moreover,
admitted. quite a large number of students adopt foreign citizenship
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 attempts to after a few years.
address this issue by granting greater autonomy to higher The BJP/NDA government says it wants the country to
education institutions and allowing foreign universities to become a global leader in education — a country which at-
set up campuses in India. In March 2010, the Union gov- tracts students from all over the world. This is a ridiculous
ernment approved a proposal to allow foreign universities pipe dream for a country that can’t provide enough higher
to establish campuses in partnership with existing insti- education facilities to its own youth. The pace of reform has
tutions. But NEP 2020 proposes allowing them to do so to be much more rapid if government wants to get anywhere
independently. close to making that dream a reality.
A free-market model and transparency in governance (Vedant Thadani is an alum of Goldsmiths College, University of Lon-
are urgently required in higher education. Increased com- don and works with Muskan Productions, Delhi)

96 EDUCATIONWORLD APRIL 2022