The Union cabinet has approved the Bill to regulate entry and functioning of foreign universities. The bill was brought before the Cabinet and referred to a Group of Ministers (GoM) some eight years back. Now, after introducing it in the Parliament the bill would be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee of the HRD Ministry.

The Foreign Educational Providers (regulation of entry and operation, maintenance of quality and prevention of commercialization) Bill will be included with all prevailing Indian laws such as reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, on these institutions.

All the foreign universities would be granted the status of deemed universities under Section 3 of the UGC Act. The UGC would monitor the working of these universities and the UGC Secretary will be ex-officio registrar of foreign educational providers.

The foreign universities would come under all regulations of the UGC Act such as admission, fee-fixation and quality teaching standard provided by UGC to other deemed universities.

However, in the case of leading international institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Oxford, those would be exempted from the regulations of UGC.

The decision to exempt any university from the UGC act would be taken by a board established by the government on the basis of their reputation, standing and other criteria. There would be three distinguished National Research Professors would be the member of the board and one of them will be the chairperson for heading the statutory higher education regulators.

According to the bill, the foreign universities who would apply for the exemption will have to invest at least 51 per cent of the total capital investment required in India.

The Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said:

In case of any other problem, an inter-ministerial group headed by HRD including the members from UGC and other ministries would look into the matter.

The proposed bill would apply to all foreign educational institutions whether incorporating outside India or operating in India or intend to operate in India. The Universities, already operating in India, would have to register within six months after the Bill becomes a law. There would be no franchise system in the process.

Those universities would deposit Rs 10 crore corpus fund in the UGC for checking entry and functioning. This fund can be confiscated by the UGC if it violates any of the national laws.

The UGC will have the power to cancel registration if it is found to have issued misleading advertisements or wrong information or in case of any contravention of the UGC Act.

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