The keynote panel on July 26, which delved into the possibility of “India as an education superpower”, hosted by The PIE’s CEO Amy Baker, saw panellists discuss opportunities to build new campuses, expand beyond select cities, seek online collaborations, and more.

“I think next year we should have some excellent good news about UK universities in India,” said Rittika Chanda Parruck MBE, director of education, British Council. 

In the past 15 years, the British Council has been working on gaining mutual recognition of qualifications between India and the UK and facilitating more collaboration and mobility between the two countries. 

But the real change was brought about by one of India’s most successful policy initiatives in recent times. 

“The real trigger for the sea change in India was the NEP 2020 rather than anything else, especially during implementation of the qualifications,” stated Parruck. 

On the other hand, Austrade is already riding high, with two new Australian campuses in GIFT city. 

“We are really proud to be the first nation to have an actual campus set up in India. We have been able to create a significant impact in India through our team here,” said Vik Singh, trade and investment commissioner for Austrade in South Asia. 

“The Austrade team has been instrumental in helping Australian universities establish themselves and find partners in India, we have got one of the largest teams here, which helps us connect to the ecosystem, and have been able to do some troubleshooting in a market like India, where you need to jump through some hoops.” 

The UK and Australia’s efforts to woo the Indian market might seem reminiscent of the ‘Ashes’, as jokingly mentioned by Parruck, but there’s no rivalry here as associated with the renowned Cricket series. 

“India’s market has the ability to cater to everybody, and it’s wonderful that everyone can play a role here,” Singh added. 

According to Stuart Bannerman, it is important to see “decolonised transnational education”, wherein India gets to decide if they want international institutions to build presence in the country, looks like. 

“India is a part of our strategic plan and we are trying to understand how receptive it is to us. But the question is whether India even wants us? Ideally we would like to build capacity, particularly access to education, student success, and talk about enterprise, employability, research and mobility here,” said Bannermann, associate pro-VC international, LSBU Global, UK. 

“We also want to bring a bit of the UK here. We certainly wouldn’t want India to go through what we have gone through on the other side but there’s some interesting things to talk about such as dual degrees, degree apprenticeships, and more.”

Organisations like Emeritus, which has a huge presence in the US, have also made inroads into India with a focus on accessible and affordable education in the country through online and international collaborations. 

“Our model is largely based on partnerships with universities. Today we have more than 90 university partners not just in the US but UK, Europe, China, Latin America and India, where we partner with them to provide  skill development for working professionals through the online channel,” said Sid Taparia, vice president, corporate development, Emeritus.

“India will be a big player and has been an exciting market for us. We are building very unique partnerships in the online space to take that further. For example, we started an MBA programme to be delivered with IIM Kozhikode one year, and launched another similar programme with the University of Massachusetts for India priced at $4,000.” 

India is a part of our strategic plan and we are trying to understand how receptive it is to us

Stuart Bannerman, LSBU Global

According to Taparia, with more than 45 million enrollments in the Indian higher education space every year, online education can fill the supply side gap to a big extent. 

Despite India’s size, the country has often been termed as a price-sensitive country. 

But Parruck believes Indian students are more attracted to what a particular qualification has to offer rather than just its cost. 

“When we did research on young people to understand if they would go for an international qualification or experience if it was cheaper, we understood that students are more willing or unwilling to pay based on what the qualification offers to them,” said Parruck. 

“If a particular qualification offers higher chances of employability, or international mobility, young people in India would be more interested.”

India’s growing market will have to add 80 million more university places to reach its goal of a 50% gross enrolment ratio by 2030, which stakeholders will have to take into account, according to Parruck. 

Countries like Australia are also looking to pursue opportunities beyond the GIFT City model India amid rising interest from Australian delegations. 

“We have a lot of interest coming from Australian delegations and are looking to go beyond GIFT and focus on other cities in India. There are more conversations on the way,” stated Singh. 

On a question about international institutions going beyond “self-interest” and helping the “have-nots” in India’s course to become an education power, Bannerman said that it’s important to make education models accessible in India. 

“Higher education in western countries should not be about continuing to move resources from developing countries of the south to the global north. I think it’s important to look at humanity-based interest for results.” 

“Looking at price points and flexible means of delivering education is also important,” Bannerman added. 

We have a lot of interest coming from Australian delegations and are looking to go beyond GIFT and focus on other cities in India

Vik Singh, Austrade

With the new regulations on international campuses being introduced last year, the British Council has been spearheading internationalisation efforts in state universities across India. 

“Earlier, we did a study on how we can support state universities in Maharashtra and Karnataka in developing their internationalisation capacity. We have an MoU between BC and Maharashtra to help publicly funded universities in improving their internationalisation aspect,” said Parruck. 

“There’s a huge potential there considering state universities have collaborations with foreign research academics, have a lot of international students, and many of the faculty have studied overseas,” she added.