Promoting Foreign Universities in India

For Prelims: University Grants Commission, India's higher education sector, National Education Policy 2020, Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), Study in India program 

For Mains: Opportunities & Challenges with the Advent of Foreign Universities in India, Key Reforms Taken in the Indian Higher Education System, Key Issues Associated with India's Higher Education System.  

Source: TH 

Why in News? 

The entry of foreign universities into India marks a significant shift in the country’s higher education landscape. Encouraged by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the UGC (FHEI) Regulations, 2023, this presents both opportunities and challenges for India’s education ecosystem. 

• While it offers opportunities for global integration and academic excellence, it also raises concerns about equity, access, affordability, inclusivity, and alignment with national priorities. 

Note 

• India is also expanding its global presence, with IIT Madras opening a campus in Zanzibar and IIT Delhi establishing one in Abu Dhabi. 

University Grants Commission (UGC) 

• UGC  is a statutory body in India established in 1953 to coordinate, determine, and maintain standards of higher education.  
• It was created by the Indian government through the UGC Act of 1956. The UGC's main functions include providing recognition to universities, disbursing funds, and advising the government on matters related to higher education.  
• The UGC headquarters is located in New Delhi. 

What is Driving the Entry of Foreign Universities into India's Higher Education Sector? 

• India’s Demographic & Economic Potential: With over 50% of the population under the age of 30 and a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education just under 30%, India offers a vast untapped higher education market.  
  • Rising incomes, a growing middle class, English proficiency, and increasing aspirations for international education make India an attractive destination for foreign universities. 
• Global Push for Diversification: Universities in the UK, Australia, and Canada, where international students comprise approximately one third of total enrolments are facing stagnating domestic enrolments and declining public funding.  
  • Recent visa restrictions and enrolment caps in these countries have pushed institutions to explore new, high-potential markets like India to sustain growth. 
• Revenue Diversification & Global Footprint: Setting up campuses in India (e.g., GIFT City, Navi Mumbai) allows foreign universities to diversify revenue, reduce dependency on outbound mobility, and offer affordable international degrees while expanding global visibility. 
• Collaboration with Indian Institutions: India already hosts globally ranked institutions (e.g., IIT Bombay, IISc Bangalore, Delhi University).  
  • Foreign universities can partner with these colleges to open joint campuses, using existing infrastructure instead of building from scratch. This model ensures faster entry, lower investment, and strengthens academic collaboration. 
  • Eg: Deakin University (Australia) has partnered with IIM Bangalore prior to launching its campus in GIFT City. 

What are the Benefits for India from Foreign Universities Entering its Higher Education Sector? 

• Global Education Access: Foreign universities offer internationally benchmarked curricula, globally recognised degrees, and experienced faculty within India.  
  • This allows students to access high-quality education without the burden of high overseas costs, visa hurdles, and living expenses, thereby promoting affordability and educational inclusion. 
• Brain Drain and Forex Retention: India saw a rise in outbound students from 5.8 lakh in 2019 to 9 lakh in 2023, with over 75% intending to settle abroad.  
  • Domestic foreign campuses can provide similar academic value at home, thereby retaining talent and saving significant foreign exchange outflow. 
• Research and Academic Reforms: Collaboration with foreign universities can promote joint research centres, faculty exchanges, and governance reforms, enhancing academic standards, boosting research output, and strengthening innovation and excellence in Indian HEIs. 
• Industry Skills and Employability: Foreign universities offer industry-aligned programs with emphasis on practical learning, internships, and entrepreneurship, helping bridge the skill gap and enhancing the employability of Indian graduates in both domestic and global markets. 
• Mutual Facilitation & Strategic Diplomacy: India can negotiate reciprocal facilitation, offering land, regulatory support, and infrastructure assistance, in return for helping Indian institutions establish campuses abroad, particularly in Gulf nations and Europe.  
  • This would enhance educational diplomacy, promote internationalisation of Indian higher education, and strengthen soft power. 
• Positioning India as a Global Education Hub: With 52% of the population under 30, a tech-savvy, English-speaking youth, and strategic location, India is well-positioned to become an international education hub.  
  • Hosting foreign campuses promotes cross-border education, attracts students from South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, enhances India’s global academic presence, and fosters healthy competition for top HEIs like AIIMS, IIMs, and IITs, paving the way for India’s own Ivy League. 

What are the Key Challenges Related to Foreign Universities Campuses in India? 

• Affordability and Equity: Foreign branch campuses may charge high tuition fees, making them accessible mainly to the wealthy elite.  
  • This risks widening socio-economic inequality in higher education, potentially excluding talented students from economically weaker sections, and undermines the NEP 2020 goal of inclusive access to quality education. 
• Limited Short-Term Systemic Impact: Though foreign universities are a major reform step, only a few campuses with limited students will open in the near term.  
  • So, their effect on improving Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and overall education system will be small and gradual. 
• Commercialisation & Sustainability Challenges: Foreign institutions may prioritise profit over academic integrity, leading to marketisation of education and potential quality dilution without strong regulation.  
  • Experiences from China, Southeast Asia, and the Gulf show that low enrolments, high costs, and local misalignment often led to campus closures. 
• Regulatory and Infrastructure Barriers:  Despite enabling frameworks like the UGC (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023, foreign universities may still face challenges related to land acquisition, taxation, labour laws, and infrastructure readiness in general areas.  
  • However, in designated zones like GIFT City, which offer regulatory exemptions and a more conducive business environment, these barriers are significantly reduced. 
• Cultural and Academic Disconnect: Foreign universities may face challenges in adapting to India’s social, linguistic, and cultural context.  
  • Without effective local integration, through relevant curricula, Indian faculty, and collaboration with local institutions, they risk becoming elitist, isolated campuses, disconnected from India’s educational ecosystem and societal needs. 

What are the Key Issues Associated with India's Higher Education System?  

Click Here to Read: Key Issues in India's Higher Education System 

What Measures can be Adopted to Revitalise India’s Higher Education System?  

Click Here to Read: Revitalise India’s Higher Education System 

What Should be the Strategy for Sustainable Collaboration with Foreign Universities in India? 

• Ensuring Inclusive Access: To align with NEP 2020, regulations must mandate scholarships and affirmative inclusion measures for students from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds.  
  • Financial aid, from either the government or institutions, is essential to promote wider access and uphold social justice in foreign campuses. 
• Flexible but Accountable Governance: A tiered and differentiated regulatory model should offer operational ease to top-ranked global institutions while ensuring strict oversight on academic quality, financial transparency, and ethical conduct.  
  • Foreign universities must remain accountable to Indian laws, student rights, and anti-exploitation norms. 
• Collaborative Research & Capacity Building: Foreign universities should engage in shared campuses, MoUs, joint research centres, and faculty development programs with Indian institutions. The UGC must promote such partnerships to enhance innovation, capacity building, and mutual learning. 
  • The government should encourage foreign–Indian college collaborations where Indian institutions provide infrastructure support and benefit from global visibility, while ensuring better Indianisation of foreign curricula. 
  • In the long term, India must build its own Ivy League–like institutions with a global presence, as seen in IIT campuses in the Gulf and Africa. 
• Local Relevance and Cultural Integration: Foreign universities should align with Indian educational values, linguistic diversity, and student needs by adapting curricula, avoiding replication of home models, and offering context-specific programs that support skill development and the knowledge economy. 

Conclusion 

The entry of foreign universities holds transformative potential for India’s higher education sector. However, their success will depend on adaptation to local contexts, affordable quality delivery, and collaboration with domestic institutions. With the right regulatory safeguards and visionary policies, this initiative can strengthen India’s position as a global knowledge hub. 

Drishti Mains Question:

Examine the opportunities and challenges associated with foreign universities establishing campuses in India. 

UPSC Civil Services Examination, Previous Year Question (PYQ)  

Prelims

Q. Which of the following provisions of the Constitution does India have a bearing on Education? (2012)

1. Directive Principles of State Policy  
2. Rural and Urban Local Bodies  
3. Fifth Schedule  
4. Sixth Schedule  
5. Seventh Schedule  

Select the correct answer using the codes given below:  

(a) 1 and 2 only  

(b) 3, 4 and 5 only  

(c) 1, 2 and 5 only  

(d) 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5  

Ans- (d) 

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Mains

Q1. How have digital initiatives in India contributed to the functioning of the education system in the country? Elaborate on your answer. (2020)  

Q2. Discuss the main objectives of Population Education and point out the measures to achieve them in India in detail. (2021)

RGI Directives on Birth Certificates

Source: TH 

The Registrar General of India (under the Ministry of Home Affairs) has directed all States to ensure birth certificates are issued within 7 days of registration, preferably before discharging newborns from hospitals, especially in government facilities, which account for over 50% of institutional births in India. 

• Birth registration:  Birth registration in India has increased from 86% (2014) to over 96% (2024). 
• Legal Framework for Birth Registration: It is governed by the Registration of Births and Deaths (RBD) Act, 1969, with no fee if done within 21 days.  
  • Legal provisions now ensure registration of adopted, orphaned, abandoned, surrendered, and surrogate children, as well as those of single parents or unmarried mothers. 
  • The 2023 amendment made digital registration mandatory and recognized electronic documents as official. 
• Governance Implications: From 1st October 2023, digital birth certificates became the sole proof of date of birth for school admissions, government jobs, marriage registrations, and issuance of driving licenses and passports. 
  • The Central Civil Registration System (CRS) portal was developed to centralize registration data that will feed into the National Population Register (NPR), ration cards, property registrations, and electoral rolls, aiming to strengthen governance. 
• Global Commitments: It aligns with United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)’s Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Decade (2014–2024) goal to “Get everyone in the picture” and supports SDG Target 16.9: “By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.”

Read More: Registration of Births and Deaths in India 

Male Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary

Source: TOI 

A tigress and her four cubs were found dead in Karnataka’s Male Mahadeshwara Hills (MM Hills) Wildlife Sanctuary, suspected to have been poisoned amid escalating human-wildlife conflict. 

Male Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary 

• About: It is located in Chamarajanagar district, southeast Karnataka, near the Tamil Nadu border, and was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2013.  
  • Its topography includes mainly dry deciduous forests, along with patches of moist deciduous, semi-evergreen, evergreen, and shola forests at varying altitudes. 
• Ecological Importance: It is contiguous with Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) Tiger Reserve and Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka, and Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu, forming a critical tiger corridor between the two states. 
  • It is home to tigers, leopards, elephants, apart from a rich density of prey species. 
• Tiger Reserve Status: The proposal to upgrade MM Hills to a Tiger Reserve has been pending for nearly 15 years. If approved, Chamarajanagar will become the first district in India to host 3 tiger reserves—Bandipur, BRT, and MM Hills. 
  • Karnataka has the second-largest tiger population in India (563 tigers) after Madhya Pradesh (785 tigers). 
• Human Settlements: The region is home to two dominant communities: the Soligas, indigenous former hunter-gatherers, and the Lingayats, temple priests from Mysore engaged in temple management. 

Read More: Human-Animal Conflict 

Review of Project Elephant

Source: IE 

The Union Environment Ministry reviewed key initiatives under Project Elephant (1992) , highlighting the completion of Phase-I of the synchronized elephant population estimation in Northeastern states. 

• In another development, the National Board for Wildlife committee recommended the inclusion of the Sloth bear and Gharial in the Species Recovery Programme. 

Key Highlights of Project Elephant Review 

• Mortality Mitigation Measures: Railway tracks were surveyed to identify high-risk zones for mitigating elephant-train collisions, which have resulted in 73 elephant deaths between 2019 and 2024. 
• Genetic Profiling & Conservation: Created a genetic profile of captive elephants. 
• Conflict Management: Regional action plans to prevent human-elephant conflict in Southern and Northeastern India by protecting elephant corridors. 

Elephants 

• About: Elephants, India's National Heritage Animal, are matriarchal and live in female-led groups.  
  • As keystone species and ecosystem engineers, they maintain forest health by dispersing seeds and creating water access for other species. 
• Species: 
  • Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) 
  • African Elephants: 
    • Savannah Elephant (Loxodonta africana) 
    • Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) 
• Population in India: Indian elephants (Elephas maximus indicus), a subspecies of Asian elephants, account for around 60% of the global Asian elephant population. 
  • As per the 2017 census, India hosts approximately 29,964 elephants. 
  • Karnataka recorded the highest elephant population, followed by Assam and Kerala. 
  • In terms of protected areas, Sathyamangalam forest division has the highest number of elephants.  

 

• Conservation Status: 
  • IUCN Red List: Endangered  
  • Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972: Schedule I  
  • CITES: Appendix I  
• Key Initiatives: 
  • India: Project REHAB, Elephant Reserves & Corridors, Gaj Yatra,  DNA Profiling of Elephants 
  • Global: World Elephant Day, MIKE Programme 

Read More: Elephant Poaching in Tamil Nadu 

Impact of Climate Change on Global Food Production

Source: TH 

A study warns that every 1°C rise in global temperatures will lead to a 4% reduction in per capita calorie availability by 2100, severely impacting staple crops like wheat, rice, maize, and soybean. 

• The study differs from previous research by factoring in farmer adaptation, including the use of heat-resistant crop varieties and adjustments to sowing and watering schedules. 

Key Findings 

• Farmer adaptation through measures like heat-resistant crops and adjusted sowing/irrigation could reduce losses by 23% (2050) and 34% (2100), but losses remain severe, except for rice. 
• Between 2050–2100, wheat yields may drop by 30–40% in China, Russia, the US, and Canada, with northern India worst affected. 
• Rice may see mixed effects in India and Southeast Asia, but over 50% losses in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, while maize and soybean face significant global declines. 
• Losses affect not only poor countries but also modern breadbaskets like the US, Europe, and China, highlighting the urgent need for innovation, cropland expansion, and climate-resilient practices.

Read More: Climate Resilient Agriculture