Move over desi, foreign varsities are coming

The lure of quality education in a foreign land was always there, but it has seen a significant rise in recent years. Representation pic

Foreign universities will set up their campuses in India very soon to provide quality education, which, by our own admission, hasn't been provided at the country's very own public and private universities. The logic the University Grants Commission has given is that the move would save the parents/students a lot of money that otherwise has been going to foreign lands. The UGC guidelines, that have been circulated for feedback, say that the UGC will regulate the foreign universities that have been barred from offering online courses. Only full-time courses are allowed. The guidelines have been receiving a mixed response from academic and political circles.

Considering that this decision will be executed, it is time we scrutinised our existing higher (lower) education. As compared to global average, India spends much less on education, and whatever it has spent so far, has not yielded desired results. Exceptions are some top notch public and private institutes that excel in professional streams such as engineering, technology, medicine and management. They have produced students who have made the country proud. They will continue to do so in the future as well. Their success lies in a workstyle that is not entirely parallel to the government-run or government-aided ones. The government-run ones are entirely the state/Centre's responsibility while the aided ones get salary and non-teaching grants from the governments.

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If we were to understand the ‘lure of quality education in the foreign land', we have to understand the utter failure of the government-run universities that outnumber the private ones. It is not that the old times didn't have students going abroad for quality higher education. But the number was much less as compared to the present because not all could afford the cost while scholarships were limited and securing a study loan from banks wasn't as easy. Limited income restricted ambitions. The time has changed now. The degradation of education here can be attributed to several factors, majorly to the act of turning a blind eye to the low productivity of highly-paid teachers, who once recruited are assured of a life-time job security and lack of reworked syllabus that ensure jobs and entrepreneurship.

In a first, some years ago the institutes here collaborated with some popular names abroad, which would eventually lead foreign institutes/universities to set up their independent shops in India, to have courses in which students could fly out to study a couple of years on the collaborators' campuses. Soon, the online foreign course boom caught the fancy of the students. Meanwhile, the home scenario in general didn't show expected improvement. There are some exceptions though. As we said earlier, these exceptions have always been like that; but without a similar effort from others, they aren't enough to lift the country up the international rankings of quality education. We may expect India's toppers to go a notch up when they compete with their foreign counterparts.

When we talk of education, it shouldn't only be about the higher part of it. It's the school education (right from nursery to junior college) that makes you eligible to step up the ladder. The state and Centre are still the main providers of school education in India, despite overcrowding of expensive private schools that work with national and international boards. Recent trends show that the governments aren't willing to provide salary and other grants to private schools that are being opened with an eye on a buzzing education market. In that case, the government should ensure that their own schools provide quality and affordable education instead of closing them down.

Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore

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