Recently there has been lot of hophulla over allowing foreign universities to set up campus in India. There is a lot of mixed reaction to this idea and a lot of groups (political/nonpolitical) are debating on the issue. The basic points lent by those in favour of such a move is
- Allowing foreing universities to set up campuses in India will help in increasing the number of seats that will ultimately help in getting more and more Indians, access to free education.
- These universities will have a social benefit in that they will bring the worlds best teaching methodologies and practices. When introduced in India they will also help the Indian universities in coming up to the level of universities outside.
- The research and development done by these universities will of high standards and will create a benchmark for Indian universities to replicate and to learn from.
- These universities, making profit from their investments will add to the exchequer.
But various groups have raised concern over such a move. The issues that go against inviting foregin universities in India are:
- The very first issue is the kind of univerities that come for development of India campus. There are already hundred of mushrooming institutions like University of North-Central Nebraska, which work just like degree mills, and do not have a standing in their home country. It is these cash-starved universities that will plan to set satellite campuses here and not MITs and Stanfords.
- These universities don't come for the development of the human resources of the developing countries. They have their own interests and that is purely profit. So the universities that will come to India will only target at the higher class of the population who can already afford their expensive fee structures. Thus the not-so-well-to-do populace will not benefit from such a move.
- The most important part of educational infrastructure is the faculty it has. In our case I wonder how will these universities get the required faculty. Either they bring in some foreign faculty on board or start poarching from the Indian universities. The idea of getting somebody to come and teach in India, is possible but does'nt seem to be a long term solution. Why would somebody who is born and brought up outside would like to come to India except for the accompanied tourism that the stay brings. And even the aspect of "visiting a developing country" will fade out in a couple of exchanges. So the next thing starts and that is poarching of staff from Indian universities. In this process what will ultimately happen is that the professor who earlier used to teach a broad spectra of students (in terms of wealth) will be facing a class who are well to do. I don't think this has any benefits for India at large.
- Also, it would be very unrealistic to assume that these universities will introduce India to cutting-edge reasearch. In the first place, such research are kept very secretive in their own country. Under such a circumstance I have no shred of doubt about the kind of research that will come to India. It will mostly be in the fields which require more manual work, and are not so strategically important. It will just be like the off shoot of some foreign university outsourcing backend work to India. I wonder how will it help in the long run when India is aiming to be a Industrial and Technological superpower.
To be brief, I think it is only when the government invites good univs to India, and the list is kept selective, that we will benefit in the long run. Stringent conditions must be placed to ensure that only those universities come to set shops that are serious about India and not some fly-by-the-night campuses. These guidelines may include checks on faculty recruitment policies, check on fee structure and research output. This has actually worked with China and therefore there is no reason why it cannot work in India. The only thing that's needed is a strong commitment.