India yet to secure offshore campus from leading global universities: Parliamentary panel

NEW DELHI : India is yet to secure a campus from any of the leading global universities, including Ivy League institutions, and should make efforts for it, a Parliamentary panel has noted. The panel headed by Congress MP Digvijay Singh made the observations in its report tabled in the Rajya Sabha earlier this week.

"The Committee notes that in recent years, there has been a notable trend of foreign universities establishing campuses in India which is driven by India's vast student market and the government's efforts to increase collaborations and joint degrees . "However, India is yet to secure a campus from any of the leading global universities (the Ivy Leagues, New York University, Carnegie Mellon University, etc). The Committee recommends that the Department of Higher Education should make efforts to secure the same to enable greater access to the best of global resources for students within the country," the report said.

Ivy League is a group of long-established universities in the US having high academic credentials and reputation. It includes Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. The University Grants Commission (UGC) had in 2023 announced Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India Regulations. While the UK's Southampton University is in the process of setting up its campus in India this year, two Australian universities — Deakin and Wollongong — already have campuses in the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City). Queen's University Belfast and Coventry University, have also received approval for setting up campuses in GIFT city . So far no US university has an offshore campus in India.

The panel noted that Study in India (SII) was launched in 2018 and aims to attract foreign students by promoting Indian higher education ecosystem at a global platform. "The Committee was informed that the Department is targeting the countries in South Asia, South East Asia, Central Asia, Middle East and Africa for globalising higher education platform. To facilitate this, UGC has issued already a guideline where up to 25 per cent seats can be created as supernumerary seats for foreign students. Besides, it has also issued guidelines for setting up offices of international affairs in higher education institutions and also the alumni connect cells," it said.

Foreign university campuses in India

"It was informed that a scheme for promotion of academic and research is being collaborated which is basically to support the joint research proposals between Indian higher education institutions and a foreign higher education institutions where professors of one Indian institution collaborate with the professors of a foreign institutions and work jointly on a project," the report said.

The panel noted that 28 nations under this scheme, including US, UK, Germany, Australia and France have been taken aboard. "This covers very important national strategic interest areas, like critical and emerging technology, energy and sustainability, food security, health care and industry. Already 787 such joint proposals have been approved. "In this, there has been progress in the form of number of international conferences, workshops and the general articles which are published jointly by Indian professors and foreign professors," it said.