Pending for over three years,the Foreign Education Providers Bill,that promises to usher in Ivy League institutes in India,will soon be placed before the Cabinet for approval. The legislation,which had run into stiff opposition from the Left parties in the last UPA government,has been resurrected with some changes by the Human resource Development (HRD) Ministry. While the original draft of the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations,Maintenance of Quality and Prevention of Commercialisation) Bill said these institutes would be set up as deemed universities,with the whole institution of deemed varsities under a cloud now,the ministry has decided that Foreign institutes will be termed Foreign Education Providers instead. These Indian version of Ivy League institutes will be open to the UGCs scrutiny in terms of quality of education and fee charged until an overarching authority for Higher Education as proposed by the HRD ministry comes into place. For registering their institutes,the foreign educational institutes will apply to the Secretary UGC,who will function as the Registrar. Foreign institutes already operating in India will be given six months to get themselves registered. The UGC will have powers to review and inspect the quality of education being imparted in these institutes. In case of violations,it will have the power to withdraw its Certificate of Registration, an official told The Indian Express. The Bill also proposes to establish a time-bound format to facilitate entry and operation of foreign education providers. Within three months of application all requisite checks on the proposed institute will be completed and the UGC will make a recommendation to the HRD Ministry on whether to register the institute or not. The ministry will within six months of the original application take a final decision on the same. While the Bill is largely silent on whether all government policies like reservations will apply to these foreign education providers,as demanded by the Left parties,it is learnt that the fee structures will have to be as per UGC standards. The UGC,in consultation with the education providers,will help decide on a fee structure for the courses on offer. Institutes will also have to maintain a corpus of Rs 10 crore and produce a certificate of validation of the foreign university from its embassy or High Commission in India. The Bill also provides for setting up an advisory board of scientists and academicians to decide if a certain institute may be exempted from the entire registration process. It will also have provisions to ensure that the institutes do not come in just to make profit,and so will not be allowed to repatriate any revenue earned to their nation of origin. These institutes will have to reinvest their entire profit in the Indian institute. However,since very few changes have been made in the Bill first approved by the Cabinet in 2007,it is still not clear if such a legislation will be good enough to attract foreign institutes. Another dampener will be the nine month period required to get all the government clearances.
