Foreign universities enter India, raising hopes for end to ‘brain drain'

South China Morning Post

2 days ago

India 's ambition to establish itself as a premier global education hub is gathering pace, with top institutions from the United Kingdom and Australia launching campuses under a government policy to internationalise the country's higher education system.
However, analysts caution that the benefits of educational improvements may not be evenly distributed, as most progress will likely be concentrated in major cities. They also indicate that collaborating with foreign universities is unlikely to halt the country's ongoing brain drain or address the deeper issues within its
education system.
On Tuesday, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan issued Letters of Intent to four foreign universities – Australia's Western Sydney University, Victoria University and La Trobe University, as well as the UK's University of Bristol – to set up campuses.
The announcement came just days after Pradhan inaugurated the India campus of the University of Southampton in Gurgaon, just outside New Delhi – the first operational foreign university in the country. The minister has since said as many as 15 such institutions could open Indian campuses during the current academic year.
The move builds on a policy change announced in 2022 allowing top-ranked international universities to establish stand-alone branches in India, a departure from earlier restrictions that limited foreign participation to partnerships and twinning programmes.
These developments could be a 'game changer' for India, which saw over 1.3 million students travel abroad for higher education in 2024 – a number that has increased by 52.2 per cent over the past five years, according to a report in The Hindustan Times newspaper.