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India has the third largest higher education system in the world, but it’s largely closed to foreign colleges and universities. That may soon change. The World’s Katy Clark reports on a bill pending in India’s Parliament that has foreign institutions lining up at the door.

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MARCO WERMAN:  A thousand miles south of Kyrgyzstan is the country with the second biggest population in the world behind only China.  India has more than a billion people and almost a third of them are under the age of 15.  To put it another way, there are more Indians under 15 than there are Americans of all ages.  That will put an enormous strain on India’s higher education system, so the Indian government is considering a bill to permit universities from the U.S. and elsewhere to set up campuses in the county.  The World’s Katy Clark has details.

KATY CLARK:  The bill would allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India for the first time.  This would be good for India because it would provide more classrooms and teachers for the country’s burgeoning college age population.  It would be good for American and other foreign universities too.  Branch campuses would add prestige and make it easier for foreign students to study in India.  The bill’s chances of passing look pretty good.  That’s according to Aparna Kalra.  She’s a staff write with Mint, a business newspaper in India.

APARNA KALRA:  There’s great excitement.  Especially because the way forward in education and higher education especially, is global.

CLARK: Meantime college and university Presidents outside India see this as a chance of a lifetime.  For example, Lewis Duncan of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, is looking forward to working more closely with the Indians.

LEWIS DUNCAN:  They are the largest democracy and their national language and the language of instruction is English, so there are few impediments to immediate kinds of direct relationships.

CLARK: Duncan isn’t just sitting around waiting for India’s Parliament to act on the bill.  He’s moving forward with plans to develop partnerships with Indian institutions.

DUNCAN: For a school like Rollins where our mission statement is educating for global citizenship and responsible leadership, India needs to be part of that globe.

CLARK: Collaborations with foreign schools have become increasingly popular in India.  But they’ve mostly flown under the radar.  That’s because India is skittish about foreign involvement in its higher education system.  Philip Altbach runs the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.  He says Indian leaders worry about a couple of things.

PHILIP ALTBACH:  They worry that they’ll lose control over something which the previous governments have thought was part of their cultural patrimony, and they were worried about foreigners sucking money out of the country in terms of repatriating income they earn.

CLARK: And so the Indian legislation would prohibit foreign institutions from bringing home profits from India.  The bill would also require foreign universities to invest 11 million dollars up front.  But Altbach says these requirements could cause problems.

ALTBACH: Lots of universities in many countries are interested now in India.  But when they are confronted with these new regulations they may well get cold feet.

CLARK: Not necessarily.  Reporter Aparna Kalra says for one thing, the bill would allow the government to waive restriction on the Harvards, Yales and Dukes of the world.

KALRA: It says in fine print that anything that the government wants can be waived if the university has a very good track record.

CLARK: And as far as the worry that foreign universities might lose interest in India if they’re not allowed to bring the profits home, Kalra says that’s not a concern either.

KALRA: A lot of universities are not for profit so they’re not looking for profit really.

CLARK: The New York Institute of Technology for one.  It’s President, Edward Giuliano is excited about the prospect of setting up a branch campus in India.

EDWARD GIULIANO:  Branch campus is sort of the gold at the end of the rainbow.  That is that’s the biggest and most challenging of all global initiatives.

CLARK: And until now, India has been the biggest and most challenging of all education markets left to tap.  Maastricht University in the Netherlands began exploring partnership opportunities in India three years ago.  Krista Knopper is Maastricht’s India advisor.  She is now setting up her university’s office in Bangalore.  Knopper considers the pending legislation an encouraging sign of things to come.

KRISTA KNOPPER:  What it shows to the world in a sense is that there is a very positive attitude, very positive thinking in India on the focus of developing education research for the future in India.

CLARK: India faces many challenges to its goals of improving and expanding its higher education system.  Foreign universities appear willing and able to ensure that India doesn’t face those challenges alone.  For The World, this is Katy Clark.

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