The Narendra Modi-led government has introduced a provision in the Higher Education Commission of India Bill to permit foreign universities entry and operation. This comes after the BJP had opposed the UPA government's plan to allow foreign universities to set up their campuses in India.
According to Indian Express, the Bill aims to set up a single higher education regulator that will replace the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE). The HRD Ministry is learnt to have circulated the draft law for inter-ministerial consultation this week. Sources told the leading daily that the Bill carries a clause stating that the new Higher Education Commission can permit “highly-reputed foreign universities” to set up campuses in India.
This, effectively, reverses the BJP’s earlier stand on the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill moved by the UPA-II government. The Modi government, in its first term, had made several attempts to revive the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill, with NITI Aayog and the Commerce Ministry mainly pushing for it.
