‘We welcome FDI in higher education’

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: Anand Sudarshan, MD & CEO, Manipal Education, which is the umbrella group for the various Manipal University higher education programmes situated in Bangalore talks to FE’s C Jayanthi via email about the various issues that affect private initiative in higher education in India. He has been with the varsity since May 2006, and an engineer who spent over 20 years with the IT industry, before moving into the education sector. Excerpts:

When was Manipal University started and what was the aim? Was it difficult starting a private university in India?

Manipal Education started its tryst with higher education as far back as 1953, when Kasturba Medical College was set up. We are one of the oldest private higher education groups in India. In 1993, Manipal University—earlier known as Manipal Academy of Higher Education—became the first deemed university in the private sector.

Certainly, it has been difficult to both start and sustain a university in the private sector focusing on building global standards. One of the key reasons has been the lack of clarity in the regulatory framework over past several decades. This has led to differential interpretations by whoever is the current authority at any point in time, adding to the challenges. Our regulatory framework has not kept pace with changing times.

Do you normally run professional colleges under the Manipal umbrella and how many and in which fields?

Manipal Education consists of Manipal University—and its about 20 constituent institutions such as the Sikkim Manipal University—and its constituent entities including the medical and engineering college, and overseas entities at Antigua, Dubai, Malaysia and Nepal. All these fall under the Manipal Education umbrella. We offer programmes in over 15 streams including medicine, dental sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, allied health sciences and management studies among others.

Could you tell us a little about your different campuses?

We have several campuses. Our main campus is at Manipal, where we have over 5.8 million square feet of built-up space comprising academic blocks—including state-of-the-art classrooms, research centres, auditoria, libraries, computing facilities, hostel accomodation of different types, and recreation facilities. Manipal University has branch campuses at several places including Mangalore and Bangalore in India, and Dubai & Malaysia overseas. Sikkim Manipal University has two campuses at Sikkim—Gangtok and Rangpo, and also offers its distance education programmes supported by over 550 learning centres across India. In addition, Manipal Education has training facilities in about 25 other locations across India.