With the Cabinet ratifying the Foreign Educational Institution Bill, the chances of foreign varisities setting up campuses in the country has moved a step closer. However, on closer examination and talking to a cross-section of experts the hard fact that emerges is that global centres of excellence like Cambridge or Oxford are highly unlikely to set up their bases in the country in the near future.
Indian students lacking the wherewithal to relocate may instead get the private ?for profit? educational institutions, mainly from Australia, UK and US, which are not rated among the best varsities but get a number of Indian migrant students.
This could be partially attributed to the fact that currently many such western universities are cash-strapped with their sources of funding dwindling, hit by the ripple effect of economic recession. In many of the courses, the enrollments rates are not increasing at the rates they were about three years back and finally, the internal processing and approval of the centres of excellence, mainly run by endowments is a tedious and stringent process.
Education analysts also observe that even if the Bill is enforced, it may not restrict the outflow of streams of Indian students significantly.
Narayanan Ramaswamy, executive director, KPMG feels that the specific clauses in the Bill, which bar the foreign universities from repatriating profits, which puts conditions on the foreign players to shell out around Rs 50 crore upfront and make complete disclosures on the curriculum, faculties may act as a deterrent, when it comes to India playing as a lucrative destination for foreign educational institutions.
However, experts are unanimous in claiming that over a longer period of time, such universities would raise the bar in Indian education system. ?Although we are claiming to be hosting the largest sports and entertainment event in IPL, how many courses of any notable standard do you have in the country which produces event managers who could handle events of such scale? That is what is about to change now. We would leapfrog into an age where specific relevant courses would be designed and the huge gap between theory and practice that exists in education system and job market would bridge,? Ramaswamy said.
Jhingan also feels that the Indian varsities may now face some real competition in terms of upgrading their courses and orienting them to vocational needs of the hour. He added, ?But the Bill also means many more opportunities for the education players as most overseas players may enter India though partnerships. Eventually the education sector would see consolidation, not so much through merger and acquisition but through partnership deals.?
Jhingan said that the education sector may now see many new innovative business models coming up, which could include tie-ups between foreign education players and homegrown real estate players, with the former pitching in knowledge capital and latter bringing physical infrastructure to the table. Ramaswamy also believes that a long term revamp of education system is finally on its way. ?
The Bill would do to the existing education system what private telecom operators have done to BSNL or private aviation players have done to Indian Airlines. They will have to wake up,? said Ramaswamy.
