India has unveiled draft norms for foreign universities seeking to set up campuses here. These are light-weight regulations promising considerable autonomy to the best global institutions as long as they provide quality education. Many prestigious educational institutions in the US and UK have opened campuses in other countries, and China has been a major beneficiary. India, a developing democracy with a huge demographic dividend – nearly 700 million people or half its population under 30 – has a lot to offer as it seeks to be the world’s talent factory. IITs and IIMs have shown the way.
India woos the world’s best institutions
Foreign universities among the top 500 can set up base in India if they meet the standards of excellence set by their foreign parent, the University Grants Commission (UGC) draft rules said. It promises these institutions considerable autonomy in curriculum design, and selection of faculty and students. There is much cynicism in India that this will lead to any transformative results. But India can progress if UGC provides hassle free policy environment for foreign universities.
What can India learn from the world
A 2016 report by The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, in concert with C-BERT, showed that at the end of 2015 alone, some 76 countries (a 10% increase from early 2011) had established nearly 250 International Branch Campuses (IBCs). hosted. The top five host countries included China (with 32 IBCs), the United Arab Emirates (31), Singapore (12), Malaysia (12) and Qatar (11). This number is likely to rise since then, although set back by Covid in the last two years. The top five home countries were the US, the UK, Russia, France and Australia, which accounted for over 70% of IBCs.
Some of the most prestigious institutions, such as Harvard, Princeton and Oxford, have no IBC, perhaps wary of the potential dilution of standards in satellite centres, but some known institutions have ventured. So, Cornell University in Qatar (US), James Cook University in Singapore (Australia), University of Nottingham in Malaysia, Paris Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi (France), and many others (as per information collected by QS Top Universities).
Some countries have made efforts to develop clusters of foreign institutions to develop a vibrant symbiotic educational ecosystem for local and international talent. QS Top Universities 2021 reported that the International Education City of Dubai has 27 IBCs from 11 countries, with over 20,000 students from 137 nationalities. Malaysia’s Educity and Qatar’s Education City are similar initiatives.
What India offers to the best colleges in the world
India has a large number of skilled and semi-skilled workers. Apart from its obvious demographic dividend, it is also a democracy, unlike China. The growing number of people of Indian origin in top corporate and government positions in the West shows that India is emerging as the talent factory of the world. However, the country needs more quality institutions to train its youth.
The success stories of IITs and IIMs are instructive. The best institutes in India are known more for the prodigious talent of their alumni than for the infrastructure and pedagogy they provide. Cracking the IIT and IIM entrance exams (JEE and CAT respectively) is a tough challenge for most people. The sheer number of applicants has forced these institutions to raise the difficulty level of the entrance exams – in some sense, they have to practice more in elimination than in active selection, at least in the initial stages.
This is an opportunity for the best institutions of the world to help India prepare its vast human resources for the world. There will be hurdles along the way, especially in finding qualified faculty, but the world will benefit from skilling India. After all, the developed world is grappling with an aging population, and needs skilled talent. This is evident around the world – from Canada and Australia to Germany and the UK.
Over the past few decades, the world has tried to understand the Chinese development story, even making efforts to learn Mandarin. However, India could be the rising star of the next few decades. It is right for the best universities in the world to help Skill India. India also has the added advantage of a large English-speaking middle class. And the growing influence of the Indian diaspora could also make Indian languages from Hindi to Tamil popular globally. Even Harvard or Oxford may find the Indian story compelling.
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