| Karan, a young engineering graduate from Vadodara, was in the Finnish embassy last week for a visa. He is joining a university in Tampere there next month on a postgraduate scholarship. |
| He also intends to do his Ph.D. there. And after that he does not want to come back as he is peeved with the way Vadodara and the rest of the country is run. He is sick of the bad drainage and the mindless construction and cannot imagine how such an unplanned city can ever do well. |
| While the last part is not relevant to this story, the earlier part is. Children are leaving the country for higher studies by the million every year. Karan found the university on the internet, submitted his educational details and ensured he did not pay any fee. |
| His total cost of stay would be close to Rs 3 lakh in two years. This is less than what many private colleges here would charge. In any case, his father is in Riyadh and can manage any requirement for extra funds. |
| However, many young people who can't go out of India but wish to benefit from higher education provided by foreign universities through distance education, are finding a new hurdle: the Indian government. |
| The government which is making tall claims of reforms and liberalisation is fighting cases in courts to stop foreign institutions from giving degrees to Indians through distance learning courses. |
| The first instance was of the CFA institute in the US, which has been in existence for 60 years and has been giving degrees to Indians for the past 20 years. The fee is just over a lakh rupees for the four-year course. For 10 years, it was fighting a case against a Hyderabad-based institute, ICFAI, which had appropriated its brand name. Though the CFA has got a favourable ruling in the Delhi High Court, it is now facing a new problem. |
| The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), which regulates technical education, has suddenly woken up to the fact that CFA, a not-for-profit institution, is not registered with it. All distance education outside AICTE's control is considered illegal. |
| A CFA degree makes you a financial analyst and is acceptable anywhere in the world, in the biggest organisations ranging from Goldman Sachs to World Bank. |
| The course is open to any graduate and requires three levels of examinations to be cleared. The standards are tough: only 5 per cent clear all the three levels in the first attempt and only 20 per cent ever do. About 40 per cent are able to clear the first level any year. |
| Many top organisations recruit CFAs even if they have cleared only the first level. India this year had 10,500 students taking the CFA exams, while 1,40,000 take the exam world-wide. |
| The CFA just prepares the curriculum and sets examination papers. It has no teachers, no tutorials. |
| Meera Balachandran in Chennai is doing a distance education course in piano from Trinity College, London. Now AICTE does not know about this. In fact, music maestro Ilayaraja and many others are beneficiaries of this course. So Trinity College can expect a notice from AICTE any day. |
| ICMA, another non-profit institute giving management and accounting courses, has already received a notice. ICMA and its degrees, which many 60 and 70-year-old Indians still remember with great pride and gratitude, will now be illegal if AICTE has its way. |
| Who will be next in the row? GRE or GMAT? |
| Regulators in education are there to maintain standards in what they regulate. If they forget their purpose of existence and start regulating and outlawing well run courses that benefit millions, then they are in need of reform. |
| Maybe AICTE favours only those students who can afford to go out and study and not those who want to stay here and benefit from distance education through courses like CFA and ICMA. |
| So the only option for Johnny who wants to see what the world outside offers is to just go, go, go, as in the old melody. |
Top Section
Explore Business Standard