FDI in Higher Education in India: Issues and Concerns (Foreign Direct Investment‪)‬

Introduction Higher education is assuming a growing significance for developing countries, especially countries including. India experiencing service-led growth. Higher education is all about generating knowledge, encouraging critical thinking and imparting skills relevant to this society and driven by its needs. Education general and higher education in particular, is a highly nation-specific activity, determined by national culture and priorities. The growth of India's higher educational institutions has indeed been spectacularly rapid. The numbers of universities have doubled since 1990-91, and enrolment has become more than doubled. But this has been at the expense of quality, increased rigidity in course design, poor absorption of knowledge, and growing lack of access to laboratory facilities, journals and opportunities for field work, etc. The average Indian graduate compares poorly with her/his counterpart in most countries, including many developing ones. The so-called elite institutions are extremely selective, and well-funded, but pose the problem of relevance and drain of talent. All this calls for reform, administrative changes, more funding, greater flexibility, quality improvement, etc. But this daunting task won't be remotely addressed by the entry of foreign universities. Government has proposed 100 percent foreign direct investment in higher education and hinted at making reservation mandatory in the institutions to be set up by foreign universities in the country. Once approved by the Cabinet and passed as law, the Foreign Education Providers (Regulation) Bill will grant deemed university status to such institutions.