Harvard, Stanford And Yale In India?

A top headline in India stated— "Prime Minister Modi Takes Steps To Allow Yale, Oxford, Stanford To Open India Campuses."

It will be absolutely far-fetched and too remote to presume that the world's top universities are going to set up campuses in India.

Surprised to see how the Indian media and even some of the academicians are making a big deal of foreign universities being allowed to set up campuses here.

Unless you make your own universities world-class as China did, nobody is going to take the higher education of your country seriously.

With my little experience in higher education, I can say with almost full certainty that none of the above three institutions Yale University, University of Oxford, or Stanford University will ever set up a campus here as it's not in their own University's interest.

The maximum they can do is to collaborate with leading Indian universities.

University Grants Commission (UGC) and Ministry of Education, Government of India MUST FOCUS on Indian Universities rather than making draft regulations for foreign universities to set up campuses here. In my humble view, this is nothing but wasting precious time and resources, and working on misplaced priorities.

What UGC as the apex Institution of higher education in the country needs to do is to:

1. Fill all faculty positions in Central/ State Universities and Colleges, as well as in IITs, NITs, IIMs, etc. 30 to 80 per cent of teaching positions are lying vacant in most of the institutions and teaching departments in Indian Universities and colleges today.

2. Close down mediocre and dubious Universities and colleges selling fake and useless degrees - I can say with certainty that in my field (law), half of the 1750 colleges don't deserve to exist. State University's affiliated college system has made legal education a joke. Just look at Meerut, Agra, Kanpur, Ghaziabad and Noida!

3. Build hostels and faculty housing: Less than 5 per cent of students and 10 per cent of faculty have housing on campus even in premier Universities like Delhi University. That is shameful and needs quick address.

4. Bring research to the forefront by incentivising Indian professors and helping them travel abroad setting up liberal processes, systems and grants.

5. Set up scholarships and funds for poor students and make education loans and funding quickly and easily available for any child without collaterals and any paraphernalia. 

Higher Education Finance Corporation must be made a reality soon.

6. Ensure full autonomy and academic freedom to Indian Universities first, before promising the same to these foreign counterparts, who don't exist now.