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One horse race

EducationWorld January 07 | EducationWorld
With the logic of supply-side economics having finally impacted itself upon the collective wind of the Congress-led UPA government in New Delhi, the decks are being cleared to permit reputable foreign universities to establish campuses in India. A draft Foreign Education Providers Regulation Bill emanating from the Union ministry of human resource development is already doing the rounds in Delhi in restricted circles. Although die-hard socialist Union HRD minister Arjun Singh is dead opposed to the proposition and has therefore inserted severe entry conditions in the draft Bill — including clearance of tuition fee structures by the HRD ministry and quotas for SCs, STs (scheduled tribes and scheduled tribes) and OBCs (other backward classes) which all self-respecting offshore universities are likely to reject — commerce minister Kamal Nath who is leading India’s WTO (World Trade Organisation) and GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) negotiations seems to have prevailed. And with the winds of liberalisation and deregulation belatedly beginning to waft over the higher education sector, several high-profile indigenous industry heavyweights are reportedly drawing up detailed plans to promote private universities. Among them is the London-based copper and ferrous metals tycoon of Vedanta Resources, Anil Agarwal, who has already committed himself — although he is reportedly having second thoughts — to establishing a private sector state-of-the-art $5 billion Vedanta University in Orissa. Now according to the corporate grapevine in Mumbai, the latest entrant into the race to promote India’s first internationally benchmarked private university is Mukesh Ambani, chairman of India’s largest private sector company Reliance Industries (annual sales: Rs.93,000 crore). With the Hyderabad-based private sector Indian School of Business in the promotion of which the now estranged Ambani brothers had played a major role, and the Dhirubhai Ambani International School in Mumbai promoted in 2003 by wife Neeta going great guns, Mukesh is reportedly determined to promote India’s first private, internationally benchmarked university. Which means that the Agarwal-Ambani contest has become a one horse race. As has been proven time and again, there isn’t a businessman in India who can match the project execution skills of the Ambanis — en famille or solo. Looming legal war With his target of an additional 27 percent quota for OBCs in over 100 Central government sponsored institutions of higher education having been attained — albeit at a heavy cost of Rs.17,000 crore to the public exchequer — septuagenarian Union HRD minister Arjun Singh has set his sights on the country’s 85 deemed universities to make them fall in line. Deemed universities are private institutions of higher learning which provide high quality tertiary education and as such have been reluctantly (because under the canons of neta-babu socialism higher education is a government preserve) accorded the seal of approval by the apex-level, Delhi-based University Grants Comission (UGC). Inevitably granted substantial freedom to administer themselves without excessive interference from education ministry bureaucrats, some deemed universities have succeeded in establishing international reputations for themselves. A case in point is the Manipal-based MAHE (Manipal Academy of Higher Education, estb.1953) which was granted
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