Beware of C-grade, fast-buck foreign varsities: Expert

With the Union cabinet clearing the tabling of the bill to permit foreign universities to set up campuses in India, the country is likely to see a flood of “low quality” foreign educational institutions with an eye on the “fast buck”, and only limited engagement from reputed top-league universities, cautions a renowned scholar on international higher education. If the bill becomes law, foreign universities will be able to set up their campuses in India and offer degrees independently.

“When India opens the door to foreign universities, many institutions will rush in, but many, if not most, of them will be of low quality coming with an eye on making easy money,” Philip G Altbach, director of the Centre for International Higher Education at Boston College, told DNA. 

“And if India does not have a regime in place that can monitor and control the quality of the foreign institutions, it will have a serious problem. You have to be careful that you’re not exploited through low-quality products or exorbitant tuition fees.”

Altbach, who is familiar with the higher education landscape in India, also points out that the problem is compounded by the fact that “the quality assurance agency (in India) isn’t very efficient”.

“The UGC, which manages higher education nationally, is in bad shape, which means there’s nobody to effectively monitor the institutions that come in.” 

And although there is some level of interest among top-level US universities in engaging with India, “they’re only going to be interested in very small, very targeted, very carefully thought through small programmes that can serve a top niche of the Indian market,” reasons Altbach.

These top-grade universities will, of course, be conscious about the quality of their offering and one reason for their wanting to engage with India is that they want top-quality Indian graduate students to come to their universities in the US. “It’s a kind of a recruiting device for them.”

These prestigious universities might offer non-traditional courses in India, but that apart, a majority of low-end institutions will “only offer mainstream courses that make them quick money...for which there’s a market, and which they know can be offered cheaply.”

Altback cites Israel’s experience when it opened up its higher education market to foreign players 15 years ago as a cautionary tale for India. “When Israel opened the floodgates, a lot of low-end American institutions rushed in.” But the Israeli authorities figured out soon enough that they were “getting a bad product” and slammed the door shut, he adds. Most foreign institutions had to shut shop and leave. “Just opening the door isn’t the key to success: you need to control who’s coming in.”

And in that context, Altbach recommends the Chinese model of regulation. “China has a rule that foreign institutions cannot open an independent campus: they have to have a Chinese university as a domestic partner, and negotiate with them to make sure that the interests of both sides are being met.” That model, he says, works better than “just letting foreigners come in”. The critical consideration is to have “effective and efficient regulation”, he adds. 

But won’t an overly restrictive regulatory environment inhibit entrants? “Yes,” says Altbach. “And that’s good for India - because it needs to be careful.”

In fact, says, Altbach, although the Indian higher education - “apart from notable exceptions like the IITs and IIMs” - is in desperate need of reform and internationalisation, he isn’t convinced that “copying from foreigners is the way to go”. India has to overcome its systemic problems, and the overbureaucratisation of its higher education, he concedes, “but copying what they do in Iowa or in Auckland doesn’t fit India’s particular need.”