New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi, Congress General Secretary, has supported the foreign universities bill at the parliamentary standing committee meeting of the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry. As per sources, the meeting was held on Monday i.e. January 31, 2011. The agenda of the meeting was to discuss the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operation) Bill, 2010, sources added.
Further, sources informed that Left parties and BJP are not in favor of opening up the Indian higher education sector to foreign players. They recommended that the government needs to pay attention in strengthening the domestic university system before opening its doors to foreign players, sources added. BJP also underlined the need to provide a level playing field for Indian universities and colleges.
Meanwhile, the Left has consistently sustained that foreign universities would weaken the Indian system, skew salaries and win away faculty from domestic universities and increase elitism in education. Sources informed that Kirti Azad, MP, BJP, squabbled that keeping foreign universities outside the sphere of reservation would result in keeping children from disadvantaged sections out of these universities.
In addition, sources told that Rahul Gandhi advised the members that there was an urgent need for a law. It would appear that he felt that since there was no law in place to regulate foreign education providers, the first step would be to let the law go through. This is not the first time that Gandhi has pitched for foreign universities, sources added.
Source: (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/services/education/rahul-supports-foreign-varsity-bill/articleshow/7401120.cms)
