The Centre will review certain clauses in the Foreign Education Providers (Regulation) Bill to attract more overseas institutions looking to set shop in India. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has decided to revise downwards the minimum corpus of Rs 50 crore required to set up campus in India by all foreign institutions. The move was prompted by a recommendation by the parliamentary standing committee.
“The corpus will not be Rs 50 crore for every institution. Considering that a diverse set of educational institutions have expressed interest to have operations in India, it is not feasible to have the Rs 50 crore corpus condition for everyone,” an MHRD official told Business Standard. The official said education institutions, including community colleges, vocational training institutions, professional colleges, general education institutions and medical institutions, had expressed interest to set up operations.
The provision in the bill that bars foreign universities from repatriating profits is also being discussed. However, the pre-condition wherein a foreign education institution was not allowed to utilise more than 75 per cent of the income (from the corpus fund) towards development of the institution in India, may be reviewed by the ministry and it might allow these institutes to invest the surplus in growth of the institution, after a certain lockin period.
According to MHRD, since last March when the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations, Maintenance of Quality and Prevention of Commercialisation) Bill was cleared by the Cabinet, several international education institutions, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, Virginia Tech, Columbia University, University of Southern California and University of Alabama, had expressed interest to operate out of India.
The bill will be re-introduced once it is amended and cleared by the Ministry of Law and Justice and the President of India. MHRD also said that the amended bill will be tabled after the Education Tribunal Bill, which will be an adjudicatory authority even for foreign institutions, is passed by both Houses. Education Tribunal Bill will facilitate setting up of tribunals at the national, state and regional levels to settle disputes related to institutions at various levels. It has been passed by the Lok Sabha, but is yet to be taken up by the Rajya Sabha.
About 15 bills related to education are waiting to be tabled before the Parliament during the ongoing monsoon session, including the Universities for Innovation Bill that would allow setting up of special universities with a focus on innovation and research. Yale university has expressed interest to help India develop innovation universities. The premier institution had earlier told Business Standard that it had entered into over 50 academic collaborations in India and is interested in more such partnerships. However, it does not have immediate plans to set up a campus.
A formal research in 2008 had revealed that around 140 Indian institutions and 156 foreign education providers were engaged in academic collaborations. Of the 156 overseas education institutions, 90 have university status and 20 are colleges. The remaining offer training courses. The total number of collaborations was 225 and with each collaboration having over one programme delivery, the total number collaboratively delivered stands at 635.
The Foreign Educational Institutions bill, says MHRD, will be a gateway through which all institutions will pass the quality test and have a mechanism to enter India without going through a process that is too intrusive.
“You have to give a legal framework where best institutions from the world can come on the basis of their brand. You cannot have chalk and cheese on the same platter for comparison. There should be a predictable framework under which all these collaborations happen. This bill is an enabling mechanism,” said another MHRD official.
The the highest number of collaborations take place in the field of management and business administration (26 per cent), followed by engineering and technology/computer application/information technology, (over 22 per cent) and hotel management and house keeping (20 per cent). The foreign collaborations are highly concentrated in Maharashtra and Delhi, followed by Tamil Nadu.
MRHD sources say over 50 foreign universities have evinced interest in setting up campuses in India.
