Foreign universities underestimate the challenges of establishing a branch campus in India, an edtech leader has claimed.
Ashkay Chaturvedi, chief executive of student recruitment platform Leverage, told delegates at the Times Higher Education Innovation & Impact Summit in New Delhi that global institutions assume it will be “smooth sailing” if they are highly ranked.
However, he said, Indians aren’t as rankings-conscious as some outsiders perceive them to be.
“If you’re not Harvard, Stanford, or one of the Ivy leagues, where there is a significant amount of brand involved, they’re going to compare you with universities who have a certain track record in this country,” he said, including Indian universities that have large alumni networks who can support graduates in their future careers.
“I think there's still a long way to go in terms of…understanding what it will take to work in India.”
Last year, India published guidelines setting out how foreign institutions could establish campuses in the country. Two Australian universities have opened teaching spaces in Gift City, a special economic zone, and British universities are expected to open campuses in 2025.
Mr Chaturvedi said his company had been advising institutions on the process. He said it would be hard to compete with some of the top private universities, which have “a very well entrenched mentor system” for students to connect with industry.
“We are really obsessed [as] a nation about placements,” he said.
He also said he had been “fighting” with foreign universities to not set their price points too high and added that foreign universities should consider partnering with their local counterparts and with Indian industry to support them in the first few years of set-up.
“I don’t see them really open to doing that,” he said. “People feel that they have a lot figured out because they come from a certain background. I think as soon as that approach changes, I think that path will be accelerated.”
Speaking on the same panel, which focused on transnational education, others said that the approach to memoranda of understanding (MOUs) also needed to change to encourage better international collaboration.
Universities should reduce the number of partnerships for more “meaningful” agreements, said Francois Therin, deputy vice-chancellor of Malaysia’s University of Cyberjaya.
“A lot of Indian universities look at MOUs, especially on the private side, as marketing material, [rather] than something that can really push them to perform better,” said Suchindra Kumar, head of education services at consultancy PwC.
“You need to really think about what that MOU is for. What it requires is a very clear mandate and push from the management.”
