Foreign universities and degrees in India

Current Humane resource and development (HRD) minister Mr. Kapil Sibbal is enthusiastically talking about deregulating the education sector for the foreign universities. One of the key point is that India does not have enough universities to cater the demand for the higher education and many students have to leave the country to get degrees.

First half of the argument, India does not have enough higher education institute, is true. But student leave India to study abroad for higher education is not completely true. Even if we have more universities in India, run by government of India or foreign universities, students will continue to go abroad for higher education. A large number of the students do not go abroad because they do not get admission in a good university in India but there are two other reasons. First, many of the students go abroad in search of settlement in a developed country. Second, they go to gain international exposure and come back. Whatever the situation of education in India. These two groups will continue to go abroad. Probably these two groups do not care too much about the degree as such as other objectives of studying in a foreign university.

We already have many universities in India. Problem with a large number of them is that they have no quality education. So, if we are inviting the foreign universities to create the environment of competition then it is unlikely to happen. The universities who will first setup 'shops' (or the campuses) in India will be the 'B' or 'C' grade universities from abroad who needs money to fund their operation in their home countries. It is very unlikely that MIT, Stanford, LSE. Oxford, Yale or Stephen Hokinks Medical Center will come to setup campuses in India.

So the students who go to foreign universities will still go and the quality of education will still not improve. What's the point of opening the education sector to foreign universities? Many of the students will get into the advertising trap of getting degree from foreign university and will pay huge tuition fees. These students and their parents will be one to suffer the most. As we have seen in case of ISB, Indian School of Business. It is not run by foreign universities but the tuition fee is almost as high as in any business school around the world for one year course. It is still successful because it is created by the business groups to have some management trainees and later manager. But every school can not be so successful.

Other problem is that these universities will charge higher tuition fee that most of the middle and lower class (most of the population of India lie in that category) will not be able to afford it. Government though the nationalised bank can provide soft education loans to students. But mind you, loan is a liability for the students and not the university. Students will get degree from foreign university with little value and they will carry huge financial liability. In case of ISB, students can take education loan upto 20 lakhs from banks. We need to realise this liability in real terms. Most of the students get jobs below 10 lakhs per Annam and after tax and living in metros they can not save over 20-30 thousands per month to pay for the bank loan. It takes almost 3-5 years to pay back the loan if everything goes well. But it takes away the freedom of these graduates to do anything different for the period they have this liability. These loans are only available with parents' co-obligation and collateral which will not be possible for poor. So they will still live without degrees.

Lastly, there is already scarcity of good faculty in India so even if good university try to impart quality education in India, it will not work. Most of the faculty around the world will not think of settle down in India.

Dream of quality education to all will remain dream even if the education sector is open to foreign universities. Best solution could have been to let the corporate houses or rich individuals to adopt the universities or departments from the struggling universities in India. They can provide the much needed cash to these universities and guidance and vision to succeed.