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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Ministry questions foreign varsity bill by Charu Sudan Kasturi

Ministry questions foreign varsity bill by Charu Sudan Kasturi

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published Published on Dec 18, 2009   modified Modified on Dec 18, 2009

The health ministry has questioned the benefits to India of a proposed bill aimed at regulating the entry of foreign universities, unleashing the most scathing criticism the draft legislation has faced from within the government.

The draft Foreign Education (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill contains loopholes that could deny India benefits to medical education and could even hurt the sector, the health ministry has said.

The criticism of the bill is based on three arguments that have been communicated to the human resource development ministry, health ministry sources said.

These concerns were discussed between the health and HRD ministries at a meeting on December 12, sources said. The bill was referred to a committee of secretaries to finetune its contents after concerns raise by the Prime Minister’s Office.

But the PMO’s concerns mostly related to technical aspects of the bill emerging from worries that the legislation may not adequately reflect the education reform plans of the government.

The health ministry is concerned over the absence — in the draft bill — of any cap on the fraction of foreign students who can be admitted to the Indian campuses of these foreign universities.

This, the sources said, could lead to a situation where foreign universities set up campus in India because of cheaper costs but charge fees too high for many Indians but below education costs elsewhere.

One of the arguments in favour of the bill is that it will help bring the best institutions globally to India.

The medical community, the health ministry sources said, was looking forward towards the bill as a route to increasing quality institutions churning out Indian doctors — the country suffers from a major doctor shortage.

“But a large number of foreigners studying at the campuses here could mitigate the hoped benefit of helping bridge the gap in doctors required by our country,” a ministry official said.

The second concern raised by the health ministry before the HRD ministry revolves around a fear that the IITs and the IIMs have also raised independently.

The health ministry and these institutions are concerned that the foreign universities could lure some of the country’s best faculty away from public institutions by offering better remuneration packages.

The health ministry has asked the HRD ministry to introduce clauses in the bill regulating the remuneration packages offered by foreign universities entering India.

The third concern raised by the health ministry carries shades of a turf dispute with the HRD ministry. The health ministry is at present the nodal ministry in charge of India’s regulators in medical education. These regulators — the Medical Council of India, the Pharmacy Council of India, the Nursing Council of India and the Central Council for Homoeopathy — set quality standards that institutions offering education in these fields must follow.

But the HRD ministry draft bill only mentions the University Grants Commission and its proposed successor — the National Commission for Higher Education and Research — as regulators.

The health ministry has demanded a role in determining the standards of medical education under the proposed bill.


The Telegraph, 18 December, 2009, http://telegraphindia.com/1091218/jsp/nation/story_11880676.jsp
 

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