Yale, Stanford give India the miss

Two top foreign universities — Stanford and Yale — drop the idea of setting campus here.

Even before the Foreign Educational Providers Bill is passed in the Parliament, two prestigious foreign universities — Stanford and Yale — have dropped the idea of setting campus in the country or collaborating with Indian universities.

HT Image

Reason: the University Grants Commission Act will regulate fee fixation and admission criteria. Fortunately though, now there is a clause in the Bill that will decide which universities can be exempted.

The Bill to regulate entry and functioning of foreign universities was approved by the Cabinet on Thursday. It will be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee of the Human Resource Development Ministry and is expected to be introduced in the Budget session.

"No one is dying to invest in India although the country is the biggest market in the world. In fact we will soon be overtaking China in the number of students on foreign campuses. The only way then is to allow private investment and foreign providers,” said BS Baswan, senior consultant (education), Planning Commission, on Friday.

Baswan, who was in University of Mumbai’s Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Contemporary Studies to speak on ‘Higher Education in India: Towards a New Policy Paradigm’, opined that the foreign providers being attracted were not the best.