The Year that Was: Why They Won't Come to Teach You From Harvard

If the HRD minister Kapil Sibal thinks that by allowing foreign universities he can help significantly more Indians to graduate then that’s not going to happen. Since the bill allowing for the entry of foreign universities was approved, a handful of universities have shown interest. And the big names: Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, Stanford? They won’t be coming any time soon.

These institutions have built themselves over hundreds of years. They will not risk cutting down on quality by creating a satellite campus that does not live up to the quality that they can offer on their home campus.

Besides, the number of students that India needs to graduate is so huge that foreign universities just can’t deliver. Nor can the Indian government.

India needs to send 22 million people to college in 2014, an increase of 8 million from the 14 million that it currently sends. The National Knowledge Commission thinks that at least 50 world class universities can be set up over the “medium term”. It costs at least Rs. 3 lakh per student to set up a world class university. If each of these 50 universities enrolls 10,000 students, the government would need Rs. 15,000 crore and the country will only have an extra half a million kids in college; way short of the eight million needed.

Here is a thought. Allow for-profit institutions. The models in three countries hold a lot of promise: Singapore, Malaysia and China.

Singapore tried to create regional educational hubs by attracting top-flight foreign universities. Its model was highly regulated. No one was allowed in unless the Economic Development Board of Singapore invited them and scrutinised them under a series of very strict measures.

Malaysia too set up transparent mechanisms and a regulatory authority. In addition it has a well-structured guaranteed student loan and scholarships regime. This makes sure that the individual Malaysian is supported.

China requires foreign universities to have a Chinese partner. The private university gets the expertise to run higher level masters programme from government institutions. The government institute gets 25 percent of the profits that the private university makes and which it uses to fund its research. China has also brought in a degree of accountability into the system. So if a university wants to increase the number of seats in a programme, it needs government permission. Only if students get good jobs, is the university allowed to maintain or increase seats in that programme.

So can India mix and match these approaches? What needs to change?

One should be able to start and close an institution in a much easier way (of course, in a regulated manner). Similarly, individual institutions should have the freedom of deciding what to teach and how to teach, and how to fix the fees and manage costs.

The argument against for-profits is that it may allow inferior quality institutions that are in just to make money. To prevent that, the government can build some safeguards such as not allowing private institutions to give dividends for, say, the first 10 years of their existence.

The other big revamp needed is in the accrediting infrastructure. Sibal has been proposing a National Accreditation Regulatory Authority. Every institute will have to go through mandatory accreditation.

-This article was earlier published in Forbes India magazine dated April 16, 2010.

WHY DID WE DO THE STORY
Human resource minister, Kapil Sibal, is like a breath of fresh air in the stale environment of India’s higher education. He got the controversial Foreign Education Providers Bill, which had been hanging fire for several years, approved by the Cabinet. This effectively opened the long-shut doors of India to foreign universities. Naturally, this caused much excitement with visions of Ivy League universities setting up campuses in India.

But the euphoria seemed a little out of place to us. With years of dithering and hostile signals, India had already missed the bus. Now, foreign universities had indeed explored the possibility of setting up India campuses in the last six or seven years. We had heard that a top-tier US university had bought land for a 40-acre campus close to Delhi. It was said that as many six top-tier universities including some very prominent Ivy Leagues, had held negotiations with the government to set up India campuses. But all these plans came to naught. Later each of these universities also denied having ever wanted to come to India. While the media went to town about how this would open the floodgates and we would soon see top-tier universities flocking to India, someone needed to do a reality check.

WHERE DOES THE STORY STAND
All the noise made around the bill has died down, even though some optimists continue to believe top universities are about to knock our door.

The truth is that the top rung universities will not look at establishing India campuses. Also, a few big universities will not be able to bridge the huge gap in higher education. We need a more radical solution for the kind of capacity we must create.

Perhaps, the trick for India lies in making conditions conducive to allow the private sector into education in a big way. Perhaps we should allow for-profit education institutions to set up shop. They can step in and fulfil the unmet demand. So while the elitist universities have their place in this new world, for-profits, which can tackle huge numbers, are an important part of the overall solution. Countries like China have done this and we can learn from their experience. The US also has highly successful for-profits like Apollo University, Capella and DeVry. It remains to be seen if Sibal will take the plunge.