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December 16, 2009 Collaboration with Foreign Universities/Institutes & Quality of Higher Education Bullet Points Rs 9,596 crore

allocated for higher education in budget 2009-10 Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education in India: 12.4% Aim to increase GER to 21% by end of 12th Plan with an interim target of 15% by 2011-1 Eight new IITs & 15 central universities to be set up Nearly half of institutions of higher learning exist in only five States Nearly 70 % of total intake capacity for professional courses exists in another five States 70% of universities have been accredited by NAAC Only 30% of the accredited universities fall in "A or above" grade Of the 55% NAAC accredited colleges, only 10% hold the "A or above" certificates Only two universities of India figure in the list of top 500 universities across the globe 18 universities from China & 34 universities from Japan are a part of this international list Nasscom McKinsey survey: Shortfall of 0.5 million suitable professional by end of 2010 India needs over a million professions in the IT and ITES by 2010 Against high demand, India produces about 5,000 PhDs in science & 800 in the field of engineering. Backgrounder More than 27,000 additional institutions of higher learning would be required to meet the targeted Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 30 percent for 2020, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal said. This figure includes 14,000 colleges of general higher education, 12,775 additional technical and professional institutions and 269 additional universities, Sibal said in a presentation during the meeting of the consultative committee for the HRD ministry. Issues raised by the MPs included whether adequate regulatory framework was being envisaged for private participation in the education sector. Whether the government was envisaging an SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) type large scale programme for the higher education sector also, whether foreign universities, if allowed to come to India would be making profit, and whether steps had been taken to incentivise people to enter the teaching profession, according to an official statement.

The MPs also expressed concern on the inadequate numbers of faculty in state universities and colleges and on the proliferation of technical institutions. Responding to the concerns, Sibal assured the MPs that the mandate of the proposed overarching body in higher education would be enforcing quality and good governance procedures in higher education institutions. He underlined that the regulatory framework would be enforced for higher education and clarified that financial constraints would not allow the central government to have an SSA type programme for the country in higher education. The minister noted that besides the additional spending by the central government for building new central universities, and degree colleges in educationally backward districts, the state governments will also themselves have to look for private investment. Sibal stated that when foreign universities come to India they would not be allowed to make profits through tuition fees. He stated that India needs to set up a world class institute in humanities. Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal told Parliament that the government has set a target of ensuring that 30 percent of eligible students should attend college by 2020. At present, 220 million students go to schools across the country and only 12.4 percent of them are eligible to go to colleges. This means 26 million go to college, there are 194 million who do not reach college. By the year 2020, the gross involvement ratio has to be increased upto 30 percent, he said while replying to a debate in Lok Sabha on the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2009. The minister, however, opposed the idea of setting up central universities in remote areas where there is no connectivity. Parliament on Dec 7 approved the creation of 15 more central universities with the Rajya Sabha unanimously approving the measure and the government saying the new institutions would set benchmarks of excellence. The Lok Sabha had passed the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2009, on Dec 1 and it will now go to President Pratibha Patil for assent before coming into law. Of the additional universities, 12 will be new institutions while three state universities will be upgraded to central status. Two of the new universities will be set up in Jammu and Kashmir, one in Jammu and the other in Srinagar, an issue that triggered intense debate in the house. Responding to concerns expressed by members whether the new universities would be able to attract adequate faculty, Sibal said: This is a very, very serious issue. We have set up a task force on this. In the next five years, we hope to increase the number of doctorates awarded annually from 5,000 to 30,000. We are investing hugely in this.

The resource gap in higher education identified by Planning Commission stands at Rs 220,000 crore, according to a recent Ernst & Young report. At present, education in India needs huge funding and this cannot come from the central and state governments alone. We are discussing various options and private participation is an obvious one, said an MHRD official. He, however, added that issues relating to for-profit privatisation of education were still being debated. The burgeoning demand for graduates as economic growth accelerates has been encouraging Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal to examine more innovative ways of involving the private sector, especially in higher and technical education. This is sensible in as much as the government lacks the financial wherewithal to focus on this sector when the claims from primary education are much more pressing. So his latest suggestion that the government could amend Section 25 of the Companies Act to allow corporations and industry associations to set up universities should be applauded. Currently, corporations can set up educational institutions only through trusts, which means they have to re-invest the profits and come under the purview of the Charity Commissioner. Section 25 of the Companies Act does not differ significantly from the trust system. Institutions set up under this Act, too, can only reinvest profits but they will come under the scrutiny of the Central Board of Direct Taxes. But the big difference is that the Section 25 institutions will now be eligible for University Grants Commission (UGC) approval. It is no revelation that the rise in the number of institutions of higher learning in the nineties and 2000s has not seen a commensurate rise in quality. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admitted in a lecture at his alma mater, Panjab University, in November, A major problem that we face is in the quality of higher education that our institutions impart. Unfortunately, most of them produce pass-outs who are nowhere near international standards. Partly because a graduate degree has been the minimum qualification for any white collar job, most universities, whether publicly or privately funded, remain inefficient teaching shops innocent of the rigours of seminal research or innovations that form the foundation of a robust higher education system. Considering that the private sector already delivers more than half the education services in India in medical and engineering, the proportion crosses 80 per cent it is clear that it has not been a notable contributor to quality, so amending Section 25 is unlikely to fix this issue. The urgent problem that Mr Sibal needs to address, therefore, is a regulatory one. Questions need to be raised about UGCs role as a watchdog that promotes academic rigour rather than a dispenser of approvals that hark back to the licence raj. So far, its been a system that indirectly encourages all manner of dodgy practices from capitation fees to fake degrees from fly-by-night private institutions cashing in on exploding demand. Foreign University Bill The government is striving for a consensus on the issue of entry of foreign universities and other educational institutions into the country. Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal said there is "resistance" from domestic institutions and private players in the education sector to the entry of foreign education providers in the country.

The Foreign Education Providers Bill seeks to regulate the entry and operations of foreign education providers in India. The bill proposes to give deemed university status to such universities in the country. Proposed law to allow the entry and regulation of foreign universities will now be reviewed afresh under a panel of top bureaucrats, threatening to delay indefinitely a legislation scheduled for cabinet approval. The Centre on Nov 24 decided to refer the Foreign Education Providers Bill to a committee of secretaries to resolve differences between key government arms The move, which effectively sends the bill into cold storage for the time being, came even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama announced plans to strengthen ties in education. The decision also means the bill could undergo significant changes again. Several top foreign universities, especially in the US, have indicated interest in increasing participation in Indian higher education. Yale, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told human resource development minister Kapil Sibal during his visit to the US last month that they were waiting for the bill to finalise their plans for India. Speaking to reporters before the start of the winter session of Parliament, the HRD minister had said he would try his best to introduce the bill in this session. But the HRD ministry and the Prime Ministers Office have failed to resolve differences in perception over the drafting of the bill, despite meetings to try and paper over points of divergence, sources said. The decision to refer the bill to a committee of secretaries effectively means the proposed legislation, which may now undergo fresh changes, is unlikely to see the light of day for some time. Typically, committees of secretaries take several months to review a proposal or draft legislation before finalising their reports. But they have no time restrictions within which they are required to complete the review. Under the revised bill, foreign universities can set fees for campuses here on their own and the government can intervene only if it finds an institution setting fees deemed to be extraordinarily inflated. The foreign universities will not be treated as deemed universities as was the case under the earlier draft and will not have to introduce any quotas. Foreign institutions will, however, need to operate for at least 10 years in their own country before they can apply to set up a campus in India.

All other ministries have supported the draft bill. But the PMO, it is learnt, was apprehensive that the bill was still not attractive enough to foreign universities and that it would deter some of the best varsities from coming to India. The PMO insisted that the bill reflect its concerns and that a revised one be circulated again among all ministries. But now, a committee of secretaries will review the bill afresh. The bill has repeatedly drawn controversy and could not be tabled in Parliament during the first term of the UPA because of opposition from the Left parties that were propping up the government. But important sections of the Congress, strengthened by the partys performance in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and its independence from the Left, have said that the government will try and push the bill. The Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations, Maintenance of Quality and Prevention of Commercialisation) Bill, which got the Cabinets nod in February 2007 has been waiting in the wings. The Bill seeks to regulate the entry, operation and maintenance of foreign education providers and protect students from receiving sub-standard quality of education offered by institutions who are more interested in viewing education as a lucrative business. Sibal said 1 lakh students from India go to the US every year for further studies and passing of such a bill would be a "win-win situation for us".

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