The long-pending Foreign Education Providers’ Bill, that promises to usher in Ivy League institutes, has now run into objections from the Prime Minister’s Office, which feels the legislation is not in keeping with the new reform agenda it is working on for the education sector. Sources said this was likely to further delay the Bill, which was expected to be on the Cabinet agenda this week.

Highly placed sources in the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry confirmed that the PMO had written to them on the issue. The PMO, it is learnt, feels the Bill does not go along with the reform-centric higher education sector envisaged keeping in mind the Prof Yashpal Committee’s recommendations. Moreover, the draft legislation, which has already undergone the inter-ministerial consultation process, does not factor in the National Council for Higher Education, the single independent higher education authority.

The legislation, which had run into stiff opposition from the Left parties in the last UPA government, had been recently resurrected by the HRD Ministry with some changes like terming them ‘foreign education providers’ and not ‘deemed to be universities’ as proposed earlier.

The Bill also fails to specify a time-bound and transparent process for getting the approval for setting up a centre in India. While a proposal by a foreign university/institute will stay pending with the University Grants Commission (UGC) for over six months, the Bill does not specify the period within which the ministry will grant its final approval. This absence of a time-bound mechanism, the PMO has said, will defeat the very aim of the legislation.

... contd.