UGC to ease PhD regulations to allow more foreign students, institutions in India

The Centre will ease regulations for PhD studies for foreign students and for setting up foreign universities in India as part of its continuing reforms in the education sector that the University Grants Commission (UGC) will bring in to increase foreign students and institutions in the country.

UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar told DH that the higher education regulator will announce revisions to PhD regulations soon. “UGC is going to announce revised PhD regulations and we will be creating supernumerary PhD positions. Each faculty member will be able to take two international PhD students under their guidance over and above the current limit prescribed by the regulations,” Kumar said. Currently, foreign students can be admitted to PhD programmes of Indian universities only if vacant positions are available after trying to offer all the seats to Indian students.

As per data from the union education ministry, there are 50,000 international students from about 165 countries studying in India currently. Two-thirds of these students come from only 5 countries, while on the other hand, nearly 9 lakh students from India are studying abroad.

Kumar said the objective of the reforms is to reverse the numbers, so that more foreign students come to India, while international quality education can be accessed by Indian students by allowing foreign universities to open campuses in India.

UGC has also written to foreign universities informing them about these reforms and is facilitating the amendment to regulations to allow foreign universities to open campuses in India. The higher education body has also written to several envoys to India sending them a list of eligible Indian universities with whom MoUs can be signed.

Kumar said that a committee under Dr K Radhakrishnan, chairman of the IIT Council has already been formed by UGC and their deliberations are in the final stage.

“We have already been approached by a few foreign institutions to open their campuses in India. This will help bring word class pedagogy to India. Indian students do not have to go abroad for higher studies incurring huge expenditures. It will also reduce a part of the outflow of foreign exchange which stands at about $US 25 billion now,” he said.

Recently, the education ministry approved dual degrees for undergraduate programmes. Kumar said that over 74% of all the foreign students coming into India apply for UG courses. The dual degree programme will also be applicable for them.