UGC proposal: Why India should not outsource higher education to foreign

Over the last three decades, three major factors have influenced the internationalisation of higher education. First, the prohibitive costs of higher education, especially in developed countries. Indian students must pay approximately Rs 70 lakh per annum to study at Harvard, Yale or Stanford and over Rs 55 lakh per annum to study at Oxford or Cambridge. Tuition fees alone would be about 15 times more expensive than Indian private universities and over a hundred times more costly than most Indian public universities. Prohibitive costs will preclude education in any foreign university campus for most aspirants. The new proposal vitiates the NEP’s vision of equity and inclusion as it envisages higher education only for the super-rich.

Second, the establishment costs of top university campuses make the project unviable. The vision of uniform academic standards in both the parent university and its international campus is a noble aspiration. However, the reality is international campuses have become a second-rate option, primarily accessible to those unable to get admission to the main campus. The quality and excellence in teaching and research on overseas campuses cannot match those in their primary location.

Third, the landscape of global higher education has dramatically changed post-Covid. The idea of brick-and-mortar international campuses has given way to building solid partnerships, student and faculty mobility, exchange and immersion programmes, joint teaching and research opportunities, collaborative conferences and publications and the development of online and blended degree programmes. The global thinking around international collaborations has changed.

India has an extraordinary opportunity to be an aspiring nation for students worldwide. Instead of enabling the creation of international campuses of universities from developed countries, we need to focus on becoming a global higher education destination in our own right. We will not realise the Vishwaguru aspiration by inviting prestigious foreign universities to locate campuses. We must assume the leadership role we had over 2,000 years ago when Nalanda, Takshashila, Vallabhi and Vikramshila attracted faculty and students from around the world. We can be truly global leaders in providing high-quality education at an affordable cost. Likewise, we can produce high-quality research at a relatively lower cost. Indian scientists made a successful mission to Mars with a modest budget of $74 million, less than the production cost of $108 million for Gravity, a Hollywood film.

We need to do five things to become a global leader in international education:

One, provide greater autonomy to Indian universities, including the Institutions of Eminence (IoE). Indian universities, both public and private, are generally highly regulated and poorly governed. The ingrained institutional habit of regulatory bodies instructing universities on what they should be doing must stop. One of the more liberal, progressive, and even radical public policy initiatives has been the creation of IoE. But this policy has not been adequately implemented to achieve its objectives. The government must pay greater attention to the IoEs and expand their scope and scale so that they become natural destinations for international students.

Two, establish global universities in India led by the public and the private sector to cater to the needs and aspirations of international students. India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) is lopsided. The national GER is approximately 22 per cent but there are states, such as Tamil Nadu, with a GER of 52 per cent. We must build more public and private universities across the country, with greater autonomy, resources and better governance structures, minimising the…