Foreign universities in India: new islands of exclusion

The policy of inviting foreign universities to set up their campuses in India has quite a few damaging and far-reaching aspects as well

- VRIJENDRA

The entry of foreign universities in India, facilitated by the UGC (Setting up and Operation of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023, first proposed in the NEP, 2020, marks a significant change in the framework of higher education in India.

This change is supposed to be not only a step towards integrating Indian higher education with global institutions but also an attempt to convert the country into a regional hub for higher education.

In this context, it also needs to be remembered that one major issue that has plagued Indian higher education for long is the gross and enduring mismatch between the demand for good-quality higher education and the supply of such an education, with demand far outstripping supply.

One solution that lakhs of students, over the years, have individually found is to seek higher education abroad through educational loans, scholarships, and family money, often supplemented by part-time jobs abroad while studying. This scenario has led to three major consequences: one, most of these students then stay back in these countries on a permanent basis, leading to the loss of their expertise to the home country; second, Indian students have now become a significant source of income for many universities in America and elsewhereotherwise struggling with declining domestic enrolment and gradual but steady decline in public funding; and third, it causes a large-scale drain on foreign exchange reserves of the Indian government.