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[SIZE=4][COLOR=darkred]Foreign degrees in India: boon or bane? [/COLOR] [/SIZE] [I]For millions of students who can’t afford education abroad and who are denied admission into the handful of front-rank Indian institutions of higher education, the lengthening list of foreign institutions which have planted their flags in India has come as manna from heaven. [B]Summiya Yasmeen [/B] reports[/I] [COLOR=darkblue]Recently Pennsylvania-based Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Management announced the launch of its International Masters in Business Administration (IMBA) programme in India. The Fox School will offer this one-year MBA degree which requires periods of study in three countries, in collaboration with the Mumbai-based Wellingkar’s Institute of Management Development and Research. Wigan & Leigh College, India offers a slew of vocational education diploma programmes, recognised and validated by its parent institution — the UK-based Wigan & Leigh College — in five Indian cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Indore and Kolkata. The Bangalore-based Ohio-Manipal School of Business, a joint collaboration between Ohio University and Manipal Education & Medical Group, offers Ohio University’s 18-month MBA degree to Indian students. Loyola College, Chennai and the London-based South Bank University offer a three semester postgraduate programme in international business (M.Sc IB). Under this academic arrangement, Indian students spend their first semester in Loyola College and the remaining two in SBU’s London campus.[/COLOR] img:28:Vikram Singhe (left) & Ohio Manipal director Vishwanath (centre): great boon Last year (2003) an estimated 40,000 indian students began classes in universities and institutions of higher learning abroad — mainly in the US, Britain and Australia. It’s reasonable to estimate that twice the number applied for admission into institutions of higher education abroad but didn’t emplane because they couldn’t rustle up the mind-boggling tuition and residential fees (Rs.7-10 lakh per year) which are the prerequisite of entry into colleges and universities overseas. For this latter group of wannabes in particular, the lengthening list of foreign institutions of learning which have planted their flags on Indian soil has come as manna from heaven. Thanks to economic liberalisation, deregulation and the drive and enterprise of administrators in academia abroad, a window of opportunity to avail a much coveted foreign degree and/ or diploma has opened for them and thousands of others. Suddenly a growing number of foreign universities are offering their degrees right here in India through collaborations — popularly known as twinning programmes — with Indian institutions of higher education at a fraction of the cost of acquiring the same — well almost — degree abroad. With the economy growing at a phenomenal rate of 7 percent and Indian students abroad spending almost $1.5 billion (Rs. 6,750 crore) per year in institutes of higher education abroad, administrators of institutes and universities in countries as diverse as the United States, Britain, Russia, Australia, Japan, France and Germany have been quick to discern the business opportunity of offering their curriculums in the subcontinent. Within a few years the trickle has turned into a flood and currently over 130 foreign universities offer their degrees and diplomas in India. Not surprisingly the next best within the country’s nine million strong tertiary level students’ community who can’t make it into the small minority of excellent colleges despite averaging 80 percent plus in their Plus Two exams and at the same time can’t afford the relatively astronomical price of studying abroad, are delighted. “It’s a great boon to be able to acquire an MBA from Ohio University which would cost me Rs.20 lakh in Ohio, at one-fourth the price and have the option to top off my 18 month programme with three months in Ohio. It’s possible of course that potential employers may not regard my Ohio MBA acquired in India as the absolute equivalent of an American MBA. But I’m confident that the B-school education we receive here from a mix of Ohio University and local faculty is as good as the original and better than all B-schools in India except perhaps the IIMs,” says Vikram Singhe a business management student at the Ohio Manipal School of Business, Bangalore which has a twinning programme with Ohio University, USA. Thus far these foreign universities and their domestic partners have had a free run in India with no central government, ministry of human resource development and/ or University Grants Commission (UGC) sanctions required. But with India being a member signatory of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and as such obliged to liberalise international trade in services including education, healthcare, financial services, water supply etc under GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services — one of 20 accords which underpin WTO), the debate whether India’s higher education system should be opened up to foreign suppliers has assumed new and threatening dimensions. Suddenly the hitherto ‘forgotten’ foreign universities, which have already struck base in India through twinning arrangements with institutions of higher education here, have come under the government scanner. Inevitably, instead of regarding the beam in its own eye and admitting that the poor quality of education dispensed by the overwhelming majority of India’s 14,000 colleges and 305 universities is the root cause of the popularity of foreign and twinning programmes, educrats and academics have mounted a frontal assault on foreign institutions doing business in India by raising doubts about the quality and worth of the degrees, diplomas, certificates awarded by them. Last September the University Grants Commission constituted a committee of experts to examine the credentials of foreign universities operating in the country. According to its vice-chairman, Dr. V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, “not even one percent of the foreign universities operating here are maintaining inter-national standards. The committee had examined 33 such universities and found that two universities from Australia and Canada which did not have any base or campus in their own country were planning to establish one here.” Curiously unmindful of the extent to which collegiate and university education has been dumbed down in India due to persistent political interference with the management and administration of the nation’s institutions of higher learning and has driven Indian students to seek alternatives, Indian academics are joining forces with politicians in launching a blitzkrieg against reportedly second string foreign institutions doing business in India. Writing in [I]The Tribune [/I] (May 24, 2003) academic D.S. Cheema comments: “No one has heard of Harvard or Cambridge or Oxford opening campuses in India. One thing is certain, hardly any top ranking university of the USA, the UK, Australia or New Zealand has shown interest in India. Only those universities with very low rankings in their own country and those which are badly in need of foreign students have made inroads into developing countries like India. It is estimated that out of the 50 foreign (US) universities competing to woo Indian students, none have (sic) a good standing in their own education system.” img:58:r:AICTE's Natarajan: credibility purpose Inevitably instead of letting market forces or the customer be the best judge of the quality or otherwise of foreign universities planting their institutional flags in India, educrats of the Union HRD ministry and its affiliated institutions — perhaps sensing a business opportunity — have assumed the burden. The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), the apex government body charged with regulating technical including management education in the country, issued a notification (April 3, 2003) making it mandatory for all foreign universities (including those already here) contracting tie-ups with Indian education institutions/ firms/ corporates or promoting branches on Indian territory to seek clearance from it. In effect AICTE will assess and accredit foreign universities before granting them conditional permission to operate in India. The seven-page notification titled Regulations for Entry and Operation of Foreign Universities/ Institutions Imparting Technical Education in India mandates elaborate checks on foreign universities and their Indian partners. Thus far AICTE has received 30 applications from foreign universities under the new notification. According to AICTE chairman Dr. R. Natarajan, of the 30 applications, only three-four are qualified for entry under the council’s regulations. “The remaining have been denied a no-objection certificate (NOC). To qualify for our NOC the study programmes offered by a foreign university in India must be exactly the same as in its home country — there should be no variation in nomenclature and content, and these programmes should also have full accreditation back home. The council wants to make sure that the accreditations which foreign institutions claim to possess are genuine. The purpose behind this regulation is not to prevent foreign universities from functioning in India, but to legalise and regulate their foreign operations to bring credibility to these partnerships and institutions, safeguard the interests of students and to ensure that the degrees obtained from these institutions are of some value.” Though the aicte regulation is well intentioned with its stated objectives i.e to “safeguard the interest of the student community in India” and to ensure “accountability of foreign institutions operating in the country”, in keeping with the time-honoured traditions of the 20 million strong (centre plus states) Indian bureau-cracy, the council has assumed widespread discretionary powers and devised a lengthy, paperwork-intensive application procedure. Moreover the registration granted will be only for a specific period and even during the course of that period AICTE can conduct review missions. img:59:Pasricha: outdated entry norms Obviously most of the foreign institutions who have already pitched tent on Indian soil and their partners haven’t taken kindly to the elaborate regime of applications and controls imposed upon them. Says Vinay Pasricha, the Delhi-based director of Wigan & Leigh India Ltd, which offers a variety of undergrad and postgraduate courses recognised by Wigan & Leigh College, UK: “AICTE has imposed too many norms and most of them are outdated. They mandate everything from campus acreage, fee structure to student admissions and faculty recruitment, and attempt to control every aspect of the operations and management of foreign education institutions. The pre-liberalisation prejudice in favour of public sector undertakings is still very strong. The government and its wing — the AICTE — constantly denigrate foreign universities in the press and accuse them of being frauds. However Wigan & Leigh itself is not likely to be affected by the AICTE notification, because we are entirely India run and India based, even though our parent organisation is in the UK.” Wigan & Leigh commenced its Indian operations in 1996 and currently offers undergrad and postgrad diploma programmes in management, marketing, fashion technology, media, hospitality, advertising, graphic design and IT to over 3,000 students in seven centres across the country. The duration of the diploma programmes is between one-three years and the fees are Rs.50,000 per semester against Rs.2.1 lakh in WLC, UK. Paradoxically while government spokespersons and their academic acolytes express indignation about the relatively high tuition fees demanded by foreign education institutes for their study programmes, the popularity of foreign-affiliated programmes among students and parents is their perceived low cost. With the Indian rupee having suffered massive devaluation against the dollar and pound in the past decade, only a small minority of Indian students can afford foreign education. Therefore the availability of foreign degrees right here in India at less than half the cost of going abroad, is widely perceived as a heaven sent opportunity. It opens the door for an estimated one million high aspiration Indian students to acquire a foreign education at (private sector) Indian prices. “The degrees offered under twinning programmes are in no way inferior to degrees awarded by our collaborators abroad. The great advantage for Indian students is that they can get a foreign degree at less than half the price they would have to pay in a foreign country. A foreign degree also makes it easier for students to secure jobs overseas,” says Fr. N. Casimir Raj, director of the Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Chennai, which offers a 16 month postgraduate programme in international business (M.Sc IB) in collaboration with London-based South Bank University (SBU). Students spend their first semester at Loyola (Rs.29,000) and their second and third semesters in SBU (Rs.3.28 lakh). Indeed institutes of higher education in South India and Chennai in particular, seem to have grasped the opportunity to upgrade their profiles and reputations by contracting with foreign institutions, with both hands. The Chennai-based Hindustan Group of Institutions (est. 1996) also offers several four-year bachelor’s degree programmes in association with Western Michigan University (WMU) to 30 students at less than half the cost at which they are priced in the US. Under the arrangement, students spend their first two years in Chennai and the remaining two in WMU. The annual tuition fee for the study programme in Chennai is Rs.3.38 lakh, against Rs.7.5 lakh in WMU. img:35:Verghese: carbon copy syllabus According to Ashok Verghese, joint director of the Hindustan Group of Institutions, the syllabuses and curriculum devised by the management are carbon copies of WMU’s study programmes. “We follow the same syllabus and evaluation process. A team from WMU visits our college every year to supervise the facilities, curriculum and also takes part in the student admission process. We have ten highly qualified faculty — with doctorates —apart from visiting lecturers from the US and UK,” he says. Although the Hindustan College faculty is highly qualified, a drawback of the programme is WMU’s inability to depute faculty to Chennai for sufficiently long durations. In fact a common criticism levelled at Indian institutions offering twinning programmes is that they seldom have stringent faculty deputation agreements with the degree-awarding university. Therefore in most of these institutions study programmes are heavily dependent upon Indian faculty who though invariably well qualified, tend to have limited experience of teaching foreign syllabuses which somewhat dilutes the quality of the degree awarded. Comments s. vishwanath, the director of Ohio-Manipal School of Business (an education joint venture of the Manipal Education & Medical Group and Ohio University, USA) which offers a full-time 18-month MBA degree programme of the College of Business, Ohio University to 100 students on its 1.5 acre Bangalore campus: “It’s very important for the Indian partner to insist upon visiting faculty from the degree-awarding university to teach a substantial part of the curriculum. This helps students to sufficiently grasp the syllabus and adds great value to the degree, which after all is of the partner foreign university. Therefore in OMSB, the MBA study programme is mainly conducted by Ohio University faculty with global exposure and experience. At any given time not less than two visiting professors from Ohio are present and teaching at this B-School. Almost all the visiting professors have taught in Europe, China, Malaysia etc apart from the US and are skilled at analysing and discussing business in a cross-cultural context. This is the unique selling proposition of OMSB’s MBA programme.” Established in 1998, Ohio-Manipal’s 18-month wholly residential MBA programme is priced at Rs.5.25 lakh plus Rs.1 lakh for hostel facilities (cf. Rs.20 lakh at Ohio University). Students have the option of completing the last three-month leg of the degree programme at Ohio University’s College of Business Athens campus. “The percentage of students opting for the last semester in Athens is 40-50 percent,” says Vishwanath. Indeed the greatest attraction of twinning programmes for Indian students is that they need to study abroad for only a few months which translates into huge savings. In most twinning programmes offered in India including those mentioned earlier — Hindustan College and Western Michigan University/ Loyola College of Business Administration and South Bank University — students have to compulsorily attend classes and lectures for two-three semesters (eight-24 months) in the foreign varsity. But invariably even when study abroad is optional as in OMSB, the majority of students opt to complete the final semester in the foreign counterpart, whose degree they are awarded. The Madras School of Management Science (MSMS), a branch of the Manchester-based London School of Commerce (LSC), which offers the degree programmes of three universities (University of Sunderland, University of East London and Northumbria University) in Chennai, reports that 70 percent of students enrolled in its programmes transfer to the affiliate foreign university after the first year. This preference for the study abroad option has recently prompted MSMS to down shutters as an offshore teaching institution. A few months hence it will function only as a marketing and counselling centre for its parent institution in Manchester. img:36:r:Walser: study abroad preference “From June this year we will cease to offer classes in Chennai and become a counselling, marketing and admissions centre. This decision has been taken because Indian students are more interested in studying outside India due to better facilities, better faculty and the advantage of working while studying. Right from its founding in 1997, MSMS has witnessed increasingly rapid student transfers to universities abroad partly because of easier availability of education loans. Right now we have just ten students studying in Chennai,” says Anand Walser, a graduate of Madras University and an MBA from the School of Finance and Management, London and incumbent manager of MSMS. Nevertheless the idea of studying in India for a period and then proceeding abroad for completion of a foreign varsity programme seems to have captured the collective imagination of a growing number of upwardly mobile youth who are aware of the importance of serious higher education as the stepping stone to success. US education entrepreneurs have been quick to become aware of this rising demand for quality American education in the subcontinent. This awareness has prompted the Broward Community College (BCC) based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to work with The Centre for American Education (CAE), Bangalore which awards two-year ‘degrees’ i.e credits at the freshman and sophomore levels (first and second years of a US four-year bachelor’s degree) which are transferable to a large number of US and Canadian universities. Since it admitted its first batch in 1997, CAE has facilitated the undergraduate transfer of over 150 Indian students to 80 American and Canadian universities including blue chip institutions such as Amherst College, Cornell, Massachusetts and Virginia universities. The tuition fee payable at CAE is Rs.1.5 lakh per year and current student enrollment is 40. img:29: Kumar: closely monitored collaboration “The centre shapes students for transfer to US or Canada to complete a bachelor’s degree.  However, if students are unable to transfer, CAE, in affiliation with Excelsior College, New York, offers access to a limited number of bachelor’s programmes right here in Bangalore. Upon completion of the study programmes the degrees are awarded by Excelsior College,” says Vinay Kumar, the country director of CAE. Quite obviously BCC’s tutorial venture in India is a success. Come August its students and faculty will move out of its rented premises in Koramangala into a swanky five-acre campus in a Bangalore suburb. Vinay Kumar attributes the success of CAE to closely monitored administration and curriculum delivery by Broward College. “Every detail from the syllabus to faculty selection and evaluation process is checked and verified by the BCC, whose senior administrators visit CAE several times a year. It is this detailed supervision by the foreign university which distinguishes a good twinning arrangement,” says Kumar. The downside of the twinning and affiliation business — and it is a business – is that not a few foreign varsities merely lend their names to the affiliation. According to Union government estimates, more than 40 percent of foreign universities operating in India are not accredited in their own countries while the others crowd the mid and lower-rung rankings in their home countries. To qualm such misgivings about the curriculum delivery systems and commercial intent of foreign varsities in India, CAE together with some other foreign institutions in India is mooting the promotion of a self-regulatory organisation to mandate quality checks and accountability. Just as well because no matter how much the Union HRD ministry, AICTE and other educrats may rail against foreign universities setting up shop in India, this is an idea whose time has come. With cable television having familiarised the aspirational middle class with US campus life, and the great and growing awareness of the vital importance of real against ritual education, the legal fraternity is likely to work overtime to find ways and means by which business driven foreign varsities will incrementally deliver their education programmes and packages in India, official displeasure notwithstanding. For the simple reason that the overwhelming majority of India’s 14,000 colleges and 305 universities are not upto scratch for delivering contemporary, globally accepted tertiary education. A generous estimate is that India hasn’t developed more than a hundred tertiary-level institutions which offer qualitative world-class education. And the competitive pressure to gain admission into this small number of top-ranked undergrad and postgrad institutions is becoming too hot to handle. For example every year an estimated 150,000 students write the JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) of whom only 5,000 make it into the seven Indian Institutes of Technology spread across the country. Given the inevitability of the growth of twinning programmes, most educationists tend to favour minimal regulation and greater caution by the student community in their assessment and choice of twinning and other education programmes offered by universities and institutes abroad. Comments Dr. Amrita Dass, an alumna of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London and currently director of the Lucknow-based Institute of Career Studies: “Admittedly there aren’t enough high quality study options in our country. Therefore cost effective collaborations with reputed foreign universities which offer affordable education at our doorsteps should be welcomed. But there are many foreign collaboration education programmes in which commercial interests predominate. The public, especially students need to be wary of fraudulent foreign-affiliated degrees. They need to be discerning and carefully assess the quality and merits of the study programmes offered and the foreign institutions offering them.” With the traditional buyer’s market for well-educated personnel having transformed into sellers’ markets during the past decade following continuous economic liberalisation and deregulation, HRD managers in industry are impatient about the all-important question of whether a twinning degree is as good as the original. Comments Prem Kamath, director, human resource development of India’s premier FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) multinational Hindustan Lever: “Issues such as the quality of foreign degree of job applicants are not as important as their showing at the interview stage and thereafter on the job. During our recruitment process we assess the knowledgeability, fitment of candidates to the company’s requirement, and his/ her overall competence. As a general proposition, I would say that twinning programmes do provide students with curriculums which have been tried and tested abroad. But thereafter, it’s upto students to work hard and absorb the benefit of this international input into their educational experience.” Though Kamath is cautious about endorsing twinning programmes presumably because doing so may antagonise front-rank Indian institutions from which Hindustan Lever recruits heavily each year, there is no denying that foreign degrees and diplomas give students who can’t afford to study abroad and don’t make it into the too few excellent domestic institutions of higher education, a good chance to compete for the best jobs and better pay packages. Simultaneously the multiplication of twinning programmes and arrival of foreign education institutions in India has forced India’s hopelessly outdated universities and colleges to do some serious introspection and initiate reforms to withstand the onslaught of foreign competition. Contrary to popular belief until AICTE’s Regulations for Entry and Operation of Foreign Universities/ Instit-utions Imparting Technical Education in India came into effect last April, tie-ups between foreign varsities and Indian institutions of higher education were informal bilateral agreements without official sanction. Moreover even though India is a signatory to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the central government has not made any commitment to open up higher education to foreign competition and is yet to respond to the large number of requests it has received from other WTO members to do so. Since agreeing to GATS model terms and conditions is not legally binding on WTO members, contrary to the widespread perception in academia, there isn’t an inevitability about foreign education institutions freely entering India. In this connection an instructive lesson in managing foreign education institutions setting up shop in developing countries is provided by Malaysia which under the leadership of its dynamic former prime minister Mahathir bin Mohammad permitted foreign universities (including India’s Manipal Academy of Higher Education) to establish campuses as well as offer degrees through collaboration with local education institutions. This higher education liberalisation initiative has transformed this tiny country (pop. 24 million) into a hub for international students particularly from Asia. Currently Malaysia hosts more than 35,000 international students (cf. India’s 8,300), mainly from ASEAN countries. “Students in Malaysia and from neighbouring countries are taking advantage of cheaper course fees and lower living expenses to obtain inter-nationally recognised UK/ Australian degrees in Malaysia,” says Casey Liang, the Kuala Lumpur based director of MSIC Management Services, a student recruitment and placement company. As the Malaysia experience illustrates, there is a visible via media between unrestricted free entry of foreign universities and the imposition of rigid licence-permit raj which will not only increase rent-seeking (i.e corruption) opportunities in the education ministries at the centre and state levels, but will also deter the best universities and institutes abroad from entering the crystallising education marketplace in India. The April 2003 notification of AICTE though over the top in its present form, is a step in the right direction. If it is fine-tuned to reduce paperwork and minimise the discretionary power of educrats, it could infuse public confidence and credibility into twinning and foreign degrees offered in the country. The argument that there should be a blanket ban on partial or full entry of foreign education institutions into India is unsustainable. The exclusivist merit-oriented mindset of myopic educrats in government and society generally has resulted in the creation of a few islands of excellence in Indian academia while the overwhelming majority of the nation’s 14,000 colleges and 305 universities have been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Against this backdrop, carefully and transparently supervised entry of foreign education institutions into India is clearly in the national interest. Their entry will certainly fulfill the academic aspirations of hundreds of thousands of India’s next best youth who can’t afford a fully-fledged education abroad while denied admission into the country’s over-crowded front-rank colleges and universities. Moreover their arrival will also serve the very useful purpose of providing the managements of the nation’s languishing institutions of higher education with quality benchmarks and force them to raise their rock bottom pedagogic and curriculum delivery standards. [COLOR=darkblue][B]Foreign varsities: AICTE roadblock[/B] The happy days of foreign universities who have already pitched — or desire to pitch — tent on Indian soil are over. On April 3 last year, the Delhi-based All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), the apex body charged with regulating technical, including management education in the country, promulgated a seven page notification Regulations for Entry and Operation of Foreign Universities/ Institutions Imparting Technical Education in India. This notification makes it mandatory for all foreign universities (including those already here) contracting tie-ups with Indian education institutions/ firms or promoting their branches on Indian territory to seek the council’s clearance. Though its stated objectives are primarily “to safeguard against entry of non-accredited universities/ institutions in the country of origin to impart technical education in India” and “to protect the interest of the student community in India”, in effect it vests enviable discretionary powers in the country’s powerful tribe of educrats. Thus far AICTE has received 30 applications from foreign universities seeking its approval. The main features of the council’s road map for foreign varsities: • Any application to aicte by a foreign university/ institution seeking to operate in India either directly or through collaborative arrangement with an Indian university/ institution or a private educational service provider must be accompanied by a no-objection certificate issued by the applicant institution’s embassy in India • The collaborating indian institution should have an accreditation certificate from NAAC (National Assessment & Accreditation Council) of a matching Indian programme. In case such accreditation has not been granted, the Indian institution shall obtain accreditation before re-applying for approval. If the Indian institution is affiliated to a university a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the affiliating university is also required. In addition a NOC from the Directorate of Technical Education of the state government where the institution is proposed to be located is also required • The applicant foreign university/ institution shall submit a detailed project report (DPR) to AICTE together with its application in the prescribed form, providing details of infrastructure and instruction facilities, faculty, prescribed fee, courses, curricula, requisite funds for operation for a minimum period of three years and other terms and conditions of collaboration, if any, together with relevant details • After AICTE is satisfied that the proposal is complete in all respects, a standing committee nominated by the council shall consider the proposal and invite presentation, if warranted • On the recommendations of the standing committee, the chairman, AICTE shall nominate an expert committee to visit the Indian institution and assess the compliance of minimum requirements • The council will consider the recommendations of the standing and expert committees and adjudicate the application • Registration granted will be valid for a specified period during which AICTE may review the progress made and periodically inform the foreign and Indian institution about the results of such review. After expiry of the specified period, AICTE may extend or withdraw registration and/ or impose other conditions for extension of the collaborative venture[/COLOR] [COLOR=skyblue][B]GATS myths and perceptions [/B] In 1994 when former union commerce minister Pranab Mukherjee signed on the dotted line to make India a member nation of the World Trade Organisation, one of the many WTO agreements he signed was the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The broad aim of GATS is to liberalise world trade in services and improve service quality through greater competition. GATS envisages four ‘modes’ of internationally traded education services. First, cross border supply e.g distance education or web-based training programmes. Second, consumption abroad as when Indian students travel abroad for higher education. The third category envisaged is through commercial presence e.g a foreign education institution establishing an education campus or facility in a signatory country. This is the category under which foreign colleges and universities are lining up to plant their flags in India. The fourth category of education services proposed to be liberalised involves the movement of natural persons — for example, cross border movement of Indian teachers on teaching assignments. img:32:Jayagovind: no compulsion Of these four categories the most threatening proposal for the inertia-ridden Indian higher education establishment is the third, under which foreign colleges and universities can set up shop in India. With a large English-speaking and affluent middle class, the country is perhaps the most attractive destination in the developing world for higher education providers abroad. Although India did not make any commitment under the GATS agreement it negotiated in 1994 to permit foreign colleges, in the ongoing GATS parleys, it is under increasing pressure from other countries to open up its higher education sector. However signing GATS is not tantamount to agreeing with its model terms and conditions. Therefore contrary to the widespread perception in academia, there isn’t an inevitability about foreign education institutions freely entering India. “GATS is one of the 22 multilateral trade agreements recommended by the World Trade Organisation. It outlines trade norms in 21 service sectors including education, healthcare, financial services, water supply etc. But member nations of the WTO have to bilaterally negotiate trade in each of the 21 service sectors. Negotiations between the member states have begun but contrary to media reports there is no deadline for member states to comply. Also there is no compulsion under WTO for any member signatory nation to accept the GATS norms. It’s entirely upto the government of India to decide whether it wants to liberalise its higher education sector and allow foreign universities to set up campuses here,” says Dr. A. Jayagovind, professor of international trade and director of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Educationists say there is a virtual deadlock between the ministry of commerce which is keen to see the education sector opened to foreign competition and the Union ministry of HRD which under the swadeshi influence of Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi is dragging its feet on the issue. The forthcoming general election has frozen this impasse. While GATS outlines provide a framework for negotiating service agreements, even without reference to GATS the process of collaboration between Indian education entrepreneurs and foreign educational institutions to establish operations in India has already begun and is likely to flourish — by hook or by crook.[/COLOR] [B]With Meenakshi Venkat (Delhi); Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai); Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai) & Puja Rawat (Lucknow)[/B]