The Bill seeks to “regulate entry and operation of foreign educational institutions imparting or intending to impart higher education, including technical education and award of degree, diploma and equivalent qualifications by such institutions.”
Sibal also introduced three other Bills in the Lok Sabha. They include the Educational Tribunals Bill 2010 to set up national and state level tribunals; Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Educational Institutions, Medical Educational Institutions and University Bill 2010 to ban accepting capitation fees for admission and the National Accreditation Regulatory for Higher Educational Institutions Bill to set up a statutory authority for assessment of academic quality of higher educational institutions.
The minister introduced the Bills in the House amid ruckus by the AIADMK, Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal MPs over alleged corruption in 2G spectrum allocation by the Ministry of Communication.
The leftist MPs led by Basudeb Acharia of the CPM protested against the introduction of the Foreign Education Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill 2010. But Sibal said the proposed legislation was necessary to maintain the standards in higher education within the country as well as to protect the interest of the students seeking admission or studying in a foreign education institution. “A number of foreign educational institutions have been operating in the country and some of them may be resorting to various malpractices to allure and attract students,” Sibal said.
The minister added there was at present no comprehensive and effective policy for regulation on the operations of all the foreign educational institutions in the country.
The Bill provides that a foreign educational institution will not impart education in India unless it is recognised and notified by the Central Government as a foreign education provider. The Bills says the institutions should also offer and impart education, which is in conformity with the standards laid down by the statutory authority, and is of the quality comparable to those offered by it to students enrolled in its main campus in which it is established or incorporated.
It also says that a foreign educational institution will maintain a corpus fund of not less than Rs 50 crore or such a sum as may be notified by the Central Government from time to time.
DH News Service
