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Foreign educational institutions from China may face the same hurdles as many of the country’s companies across other sectors, if and when they want to enter India. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) will seek the opinion of the ministries of external affairs, home affairs, and even intelligence agencies before allowing Chinese institutions to set up campuses in India.
According to an official, proposals from China, Pakistan and Bangladesh are treated as sensitive, and that the HRD ministry has the room to deny permission to institutes from these countries.
“Where decisions are of strategic interest to the country, the HRD ministry will seek the opinions of External affairs ministry and Home Affairs before a decision is taken. This could be with regards to China or Pakistan or some other country”, an official in the HRD ministry told Business Standard.
While the government is yet to decide and notify rules allowing foreign institutions to operate in India, the decision to consider Chinese institutions separately hardly comes as a surprise. India currently does not allow Chinese companies to operate across varied sectors including ports, aviation and telecom.
According to a recent government announcement, the HRD ministry had said that the top 400 institutions from across the globe are eligible to operate in India. The top 400 institutions from the UK based Times Higher education ranking, UK based Quacquarelli Symonds ranking and the China-based Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings are allowed to set up campuses and offer degrees without having a local partner.
According to the Times Higher Education ranking, there are five Chinese institutions in the list, which makes them eligible to be considered for operations in India. Meanwhile, the QS rating has 11 Chinese institutions in its top 100 while the Shanghai Air Ranking has 15 Chinese institutions in its top 400. Some of the top universities from China include Peking University, Tsinghua University and Fudan University.
“Recently, there was a case where a college had a tie up with a Chinese institution and due to security implications, UGC had to cancel the programme. There are specific instructions regarding certain countries and China is on top of that list,” the official added.
According to estimates, more than 10,000 students travel from India to China for higher education and more than 90% of the students enroll themselves for medical courses due to the cost advantage. The proposal to allow foreign education institutions in India to set up campuses is currently being studied by the Law ministry and a final notification is expected in the coming week.
A large number of foreign universities meanwhile have said that they have no immediate plans of setting up campuses in India immediately. But there are others who are waiting to come. “University College London welcomes the proposed removal of restrictions on foreign universities to establish campuses in India,” a spokesperson said. UCL already has wide-ranging research and academic links with the country. Over the next five years UCL’s international strategy will be looking to broaden and deepen these links through a number of initiatives. “If the restrictions were to be removed we would certainly consider the option to establish a high quality, niche research campus in the country (along the lines of our existing campuses at UCL Australia and UCL Qatar”, he added.
