Foreign universities willing to set up campuses in India will have the liberty to decide their admission procedure, fee structure and send back funds to their parent campuses, The University Grants Commission announced on Thursday.
 
Addressing the media, UGC chairperson Prof M Jagadesh Kumar said these regulations are aimed at providing better access to our Indian students to high quality international education at the comfort of their own country. He added that this was a crucial step towards aligning with the vision of the National Education Policy 2020. The regulations – UGC (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations 2023 will be notified by the end of January 2023.

“The foreign varsities will have the freedom to formulate their own fee structure. However, the regulations specify that the fee structure should be transparent and must be ‘reasonable’. They will also be allowed to provide need-based scholarships,” Kumar said, adding that foreign universities have complete autonomy to hire faculty and other staff members either from abroad or India.

 To begin with, they will be permitted to operate for a 10-year-period and at the ninth year, a renewal must be filed for. Among the other eligibility criteria, Universities that participate in global rankings will require a place in the top 500 to apply to set up campuses in India, while those that do not participate in such rankings will need to be “highly reputed” in their respective countries. Applicants will be allowed a 2-year-period to set up campuses. They will be mandated to conduct classes in hybrid mode.

 The UGC will operate a separate portal for receiving the web-based proposals to set up campuses. A committee formed by the commission will assess the applications and make recommendations which will be further examined by the commission.

“The selected applicants will be given about two years to set up campuses,” Prof Kumar said, adding that the institutes will have to ensure that the quality of education in the Indian campuses is at par with the parent campuses. Moreover, they will have to mandatorily impart education in offline mode as online classes shall not be allowed.

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