Foreign universities in India: What difference can they make?

Aerial view of the Central University of Kerala campus in Kasargod (Image courtesy: Facebook/Central University of Kerala/Representational)

Should people in India, particularly the potential stakeholders, celebrate the imminent event that foreign universities will soon be established in the country? Frankly, I am not very sure if they should. The first of the two universities from Australia that are slated to make their debut is Deakin University which will take root in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) in Gujarat.

This is happening because the New Education Policy aims at “academic exchange and cooperation between Indian and global institutions to raise the standard of higher education and research in the country”. Before we go any further and analyse the likely impact of the arrival of foreign universities, let us recapitulate the genesis and growth of universities in India. The very first three universities in India were established in 1857 in the then three Presidencies, namely, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. Subsequently, many central and state universities came up. As a departure from these erstwhile state and central universities, many a so-called deemed-to-be-university also came up. Then some states legislated the establishment of private universities. These private universities are growing quite fast in numbers. It is another matter that a range of private universities are of variable quality and character. Recently, a handful of universities, including private ones were designated Universities of Eminence.

Improving Standards

To add to the plethora of over a thousand existing universities of different types, shapes and colours in India, and some that exist only on paper, will be the foreign universities which will, it is claimed, lead to the “setting up of world-class educational institutions”. So, in a way, it is a tacit admission that the existing Indian universities are not world-class and may continue to remain so. Hence, to meet world standards, India is importing foreign universities, without making much effort to raise the standards of the existing Indian universities to the world level.

It is not clear how a foreign university will raise the standards to the world level. Two of the main constituents of a university are students/scholars and faculty. Though some foreign students may join the new institutions, the bulk of the students will be from within the country. Would these students transform themselves to a different and higher level, almost overnight, just because they will join an institution that has, probably, had a high grading/reputation in entirely different and alien conditions, ecological and environmental settings and circumstances in the overseas milieus? We have no clear answers to these questions as we do not have any empirical evidence to go by; and, granted, speculations could cut both ways, positively and negatively.

Vacant Positions

The second component, that is of the faculty, is even more complex. Though an institution may have a high standing in its original niche abroad due to the faculty and many allied factors there, all these erudite souls, or even a major chunk of these, are not going to come over to India to their respective offshore constituents. As in the case of students/scholars, the faculty too will have to be drawn predominantly from the existing local pool. It is not out of place to point out here that what we think of as a “pool” of potential faculty from within the country is actually a mere puddle. At the level of almost all universities in the country – central, state, deemed-to-be and even private ones – there is a serious shortage of faculty. To cite the example of just one of the kinds of these universities, the central ones, for instance, the shortfall of faculty in 46 central universities is an astonishing 6,481.

What does this scarcity signify? In one word, mediocrity. When amplified that means, there just are not enough candidates who meet the requirements as faculty at higher educational institutions. One may argue that we do not have the numbers, but it is impossible to subscribe to that thought given the number of postgraduate and doctoral degree holders passing out from the portals of our different kinds of higher learning. This argument gets strengthened due to the fact that literally hundreds, if not thousands, apply for a single post of assistant professor when faculty recruitment is announced by a university.

Most universities have a hard time shortlisting candidates for interviews given the large numbers of applicants. This, I say, from personal experience as a recruiter and as a member of faculty recruitment panels in many institutions of higher learning. To put it succinctly, the scene is disheartening. So, where are the faculty for the foreign universities to be drawn from?

What Students Want

An argument put forth in favour of the arrival of foreign universities is that for lower fees students in India will get a world-class ambience. Students go abroad for many reasons –for the experience of living abroad, meeting faculty and students from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, establishing contacts and for the important reason of finding a job abroad, getting residency permits in the country they go to, and maybe the potentiality of getting overseas citizenship.

Will the incursion of foreign universities in India up the game and make our universities strive to reach world standards? Not likely, as no obstacles or roadblocks or anything else has prevented any of them to raise the bar. Why wait for foreign universities to spur them on, and in what way are they likely to do so, given that the two components that we discussed above will in no way alter the educational scenario in the country?

MA Kalam, a social anthropologist, is Visiting Professor, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.