The Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill, 2010, the outcome of a national debate spanning almost five years which is expected to be passed by Parliament in the imminent monsoon session, is proof of the grudging national mindset which has cabined, cribbed and confined post-independence India’s socio-economic development effort. The prime objective of the Bill seems to be to protect Indian students from being ripped off by foreign education institutions (FEIs) offering substandard curriculums at high prices. This is hardly the ideal way to attract the best FEIs with established traditions of teaching and research, and reputations to lose. Little wonder there’s conspicuous lack of enthusiasm within FEIs about the patently reluctant opening up of the Indian higher education market.
A better job needs to be done of rolling out the red carpet because the country urgently requires high quality FEIs to expand capacity and raise standards in higher education. Currently, barely 11 percent of India’s 112 million youth in the age group 18-24 enter institutions of higher education, against over 60 percent in the US, 40 percent in the UK and Europe, and 23 percent in China. And even of this small percentage, according to a McKinsey World Institute study conducted in 2005, 75 percent of engineering and 85 percent of liberal arts and science graduates are unsuitable for employment in globally benchmarked companies. Therefore, Indian education needs all the help it can get from inside India and abroad.
A lesson in how to invite and welcome FEIs to set up shop in locations far from home is provided by the island Republic of Singapore, which over the past decade or so has persuaded some of the world’s most prestigious universities and B-schools in particular, to establish campuses in the city state. To study the Singapore model, your editor journeyed to Singapore — a first-time visit made against the backdrop of imminent clearance of the FEI Bill, 2010 by Parliament in New Delhi. Although government officials are not easily accessible in this ‘Asian Way’ democracy where speaking out of turn can have unpleasant consequences, it was a case of veni, vidi, victus sum (I came, I saw and was conquered). The miraculous transformation of an insignificant port city, which by all accounts was in as bad shape as the port of Mumbai currently, into arguably the world’s greenest, cleanest — and highly educated — country with a per capita income of $49,700, necessitates a long, hard look at the sputtering Westminster democracy model adopted by post-independence India. Nevertheless, larger systemic considerations apart, there’s no gainsaying that the island republic’s efforts to draw the best blue-chip universities — indeed best education providers in general — have been eminently successful.
The lesson I have learned from Singapore is that universalisation of education — the sine qua non of national development — requires an open-door policy for all willing to provide education and research services. There’s more than enough room and opportunities for all bona fide education providers in Indian education. Officialdom and society in general needs to reverse its grudging mindset and welcome, instead of ‘permit’ FEIs, NGOs and private initiatives in education. In this context, a strong case for liberal-isation of secondary education is made in this month’s scary special report feature, written by our can-do assistant editor Summiya Yasmeen.
