India Approves Process for Collaborations With Top-Ranked Global Universities

The Indian government, unsure that a long-stalled foreign-universities bill will be passed by Parliament, on Saturday approved new regulations under which the world’s top-ranked higher-education institutions would be allowed to run dual degrees or twinning programs with Indian universities, report The Hindu, The Indian Express, and the Hindustan Times. Already, India’s major left party has termed this move as “contempt of Parliament,” reports the Business Standard. The foreign universities must figure in the top 500 institutions, as measured by Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings or the Academic Rankings of World Universities produced by China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University. More than 340 institutes in India now offer degree programs in collaboration with foreign providers, but few of those rank among the top 500. The new guidelines will cover these existing partnerships, with the Indian institutions given six months to meet the new eligibility criteria. If they fail to do so they will risk, in the case of private institutions, being de-recognized, or, in the case of public universities, seeing their financing eliminated.