Ministries differ on foreign univs

HRD ministry says the proposal was drafted in 'haste' and without its consultation, writes Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Aug 28, 2006, 03:21:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The Commerce Ministry's recent proposal at the WTO to open the Indian education sector to foreign education providers has run into opposition from the HRD Ministry. In fact, the HRD Ministry believes the proposal should be withdrawn.

The ministry wants a revised proposal – prepared in consultation with it – to be submitted. The Commerce Ministry is yet to agree to this.

The Commerce Ministry had presented a four-point proposal to allow foreign universities to set up institutes and universities in India. It proposed that foreign universities would be allowed in technical, medical and research courses as per the regulations of the country of their origin.

“They could be granted deemed-to-be-university status, thereby allowing them to issue degrees," said a government official.

On the crucial issue of fee structure, the proposal appeared quite flexible. The foreign institutes could decide their fee structure but the process of determining it would have to be approved by an appropriate authority, the ministry proposed.

Post-entry, the foreign education providers could either tie-up with Indian education providers or start their own campuses, the proposal said. But the Foreign Investment Promotion Board's permission was mandatory for opening campuses.

The HRD Ministry says the proposal was drafted in 'haste' and without its consultation. In the monsoon session, the ministry told the Lok Sabha that no decision could be taken in too much haste and it would have an impact on the domestic education sector.

On the issue of fee structure, the ministry says the government should have overall control on the fee charged to protect domestic education providers.

Recently, the HRD Ministry brought the Foreign Education Providers Regulation Bill before the cabinet.

The bill was referred to a GoM to sort out the differences between the two ministries. HRD Ministry sources say a meeting of the GoM was held in mid-August but no consensus could be reached.

But officials are confident that the issues will be sorted out and a revised bill introduced in Parliament's winter session.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.