As India seeks greater collaboration with foreign educational institutes,Minister for Human Resources Development Kapil Sibal said any and everybody cannot open a branch of their university on Indian soil. In wake of sham universities like Tri Valley leaving a bitter taste among several Indian students here,Sibal said India has robust measures in place to ensure such universities do not enter the country. Sibal said bad experiences with universities like Tri Valley are aberrations and should not be used to paint the entire American education system as flawed. We should not brush the American system in this fashion that we have a few instances of sham universities and the kind of visas they have been giving,just as we did not paint the entire Australian system with the same brush after Indian students were targeted in attacks there,Sibal said at an event organised here by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The Tri Valley University was shut down early this year on grounds of alleged immigration scam. We have an act coming up in Parliament called the Education Malpractices Act. This is one of the malpractice which is made a criminal offence and if something like this (Tri valley sham) were to happen in India,people behind the university will go to jail. He said while India wants greater collaboration with US universities,it will not mean that we will allow the sham universities to come to India, adding that there is a robust process of looking at applications of universities.
