How Higher education in India poised for a major makeover.

The dream of Indian students to study in India but get an international degree from a prestigious foreign university, to study abroad during the course of an Indian degree, or even get a dual degree, one from the home institution and the other one from a foreign university—all these, which would have seemed like flights of fancy in the past, are now close to become realities.

Thanks to the Indian University Grants Commission's notification of May 2 on new regulations on Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign Higher Educational Institutions, Indian higher education is about to open "too foreign to" partnerships with foreign universities as never before.

Under this notification, three possibilities are offered for collaboration between Indian and foreign universities. First, the “Twinning Program,” under which an Indian institution may have a partner university abroad where its students can study for up to 30% of their degree requirements. The degree will be awarded by the Indian university.

This translates into a sort of study abroad program, with the foreign host university and the home institution providing transcripts of their own respective course components and credits. The entire program will be in conventional mode, that is, through physical attendance at the foreign university for the credits earned there.

Joint Degree Programmer

The second possibility is the “Joint Degree Program.” Here, both the Indian and the foreign university will jointly develop curricula for degree, that will be awarded by a single certificate issued by both institutions upon the completion of the course.

Again, at least 30% of the course work and credits required for the degree must be earned at either of the two institutions through actual attendance, that is, in the conventional mode. Foreign universities, which want to save money in infrastructure and faculty, might opt for 70% of their curriculum delivery out of India, with a partner institution whose quality of instruction they might trust. Both institutions stand to benefit from such a partnership, with Indian students getting a foreign degree, at least in principle, for 30% of the actual costs of actually studying abroad.

“Dual Degree Program,” is the third scheme, opened up by the UGC. This would be jointly designed and offered by both institutions, Indian and foreign, in similar areas, with two separate degrees being offered on the completion of the requirements of both programs. Students would have to be admitted to two programs in effect, completing two admission processes and course requirements. Dual degree program Students enrolled in the dual degree program would save the time and the effort in the common component, but would still need to complete the remaining requirements to get both degrees. In response to the notification, it was reported that close to 50 foreign universities have already expressed their interest in exploring the possibilities of collaboration with Indian universities and institutions. These include University of Glasgow, Scotland, University of Manchester, and School of African and Oriental Studies, London, from the United Kingdom, Deakin University and University of Queensland, Australia, University of Tokyo, Durban University of Technology, South Africa, University of Jena, Germany, and even Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US.