India calling

B-SCHOOL: Around 40 international universities are awaiting government permission to start operations in the country.

Foreign universities have started making a beeline to establish their campuses in India. This notwithstanding the fact that the government is still mulling over allowing FDI in education.

Proposals from as many as 40 international universities have been submitted to the government of Maharashtra with most of these universities seeking land in the Mumbai-Pune-Nashik belt to establish a campus.

The names include Stanford University, Georgia Tech University, British Columbia University, McGill University, Simon Fraser University, Cubec University and Montreal University.

Sources say the investment these universities have lined up in India are huge. For instance, a UAE based, Higher Colleges of Technology's Centre of Excellence for Applied Research and Training (CERT), has plans to pump in around $300-350 million to establish its campus in India.

The college is looking for a huge plot of land in Maharashtra or Karnataka. It is however, keen to get land in Karnataka due to dominance of IT parks in the state.

CERT is part of a 13-college network operated by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in the United Arab Emirates and operates two Technology Parks in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in collaboration with software giants like Lucent Technologies, Honeywell, and GEC Marconi.

On the other hand, Georgia Tech University from the US is planning to establish a global research hub in the country and is keen on a land in Maharashtra.

The university is said to have made a presentation to the Maharashtra Chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh and the chief minister is to decide on the same.

In terms of investment, the university would not be doing much. Sources say, numerous industrial houses in India are ready to support the university's project. Sources also say, the research hub will help the university make inroads in to the Indian education system and it might start a university in future too.

A couple of Canadian universities which are also in talks to set up campuses are scouting for land in Maharashtra.

The land area one university is seeking is anywhere between 10 acre to 300 acre. Most of these universities are eyeing to set shops in the Western region only. However, few universities also plan to go for an academic tie-up with Indian institutes and share their campus.

The subjects these universities will offer would vary from IT, engineering, business and science. "They are aware of the conditions government of India has put forth with regard to starting a campus or a course in India. And they will introduce unique courses in India," said M N Chaini, president, Maharashtra Economic Development Council.

"These institutes will bring in dynamics in syllabus and study pattern which is absent among Indian institutes. The foreign institutes have facilities and infrastructure but lack quality students. Their presence in India will be of great help to the Indian education scenario," he added.

In India, in the 17-to-23-year-old age group, only 11 per cent (or 10.5 million students) sign up for higher education. Compared to other developing economies: 13 per cent in China, 31 per cent in the Philippines, 27 per cent in Malaysia, and 19 per cent in Thailand.

New Delhi's annual budget for higher education is $2 billion, or 0.37 per cent of the GDP, which also lags most other countries in the region.