Foreign varsities to set up campuses as
companies, MHRD to change UGC
The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has
sent proposals to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the
Department of Economic Affairs to permit foreign universities to open their
campuses in the country as companies as provided under the Companies Act.
As per the powers vested with the Central Government to make
rules under the UGC ACT, the ministry is in the process of finalizing the UGC
(Established and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Educational Institutions)
Rules by which foreign universities can set up campus in India and issue
foreign degrees.
The Ministry had sought comments and observations of the
Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the Department of
Economic Affairs (DEA) on the Rules. Both DIPP and DEA have supported the
proposal.
Under the proposed Rules, Foreign Educational Institutions
(FEIs) can set up campuses in India once the FEIs have been notified as Foreign
Education Provider (FEPs) by the UGC. FEI have to fulfill of certain
eligibility conditions.
Any FEI which intends to set up a campus in India would do
so through an association to be registered as a company under section 25 of the
Companies Act, 1956.
The FEI shall be ranked among the top 400 universities of
the world as per the ranking published by Times Higher Education, Quacquarelli
Symonds (QS) or the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by Shanghai
Jiao Tong University.
A senior official of the MHRD close to the
development on condition of anonimity said, " yes the proposal has been
sent to the department of economic affairs for its approval and UGC
rules are being reframed to allow quality foreign universties to open
their campuses in India. It is expected to happen this year only and
this will certainly imporve the quality of education being imparted in
the country."
All FEIs intending to apply under the Rules shall be
not-for-profit legal entities, which have been in existence for at least twenty
years and accredited by an accrediting agency of that country or in the absence
of its accreditation in that country, by an internationally accepted system of
accreditation.
The FEP will offer programmes of study or courses to be of
quality comparable to those offered to students in its main campus. Each FEI
before being notified as an FEP would be required to maintain a corpus of not
less than Rupees twenty five crores.
The Rules also provide for penalties ranging from Rupees
fifty lakhs to Rupees one crore for FEP who contravene any provision of these
Rules or UGC Act, and the forfeited of corpus fund. The degrees awarded by
these FEPs would be treated as foreign degrees only and the same shall be
subject to the equivalence accorded by the Association of Indian Universities
(AIU) as per their system.
Last year, the MHRD had asked the
University Grants Commission (UGC) to identify possibilities within the
existing laws of regulating and allowing the foreign educational
institutions.
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