2008.11.25
Virginia Tech navigating Indian bureaucracy
Virginia Tech is mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article this month about bureaucratic interference in India stifling the growth of universities there.
The All India Council for Technical Education, a government entity in India that serves as a national approving group, is cracking down on foreign interests in the country trying to benefit from the huge demand for education there. Some are legitimate and some are not.
A few years back, Tech partnered with the Mumbai-based S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research to offer a Masters in Information Technology Program.
The program grew quickly, from 30 students in the first class to 59 in the third, and most recent, cohort. Demand grew at an even faster rate, with applications growing from 200 to 800, said John Dooley, Tech's vice president for outreach and international affairs.
Dooley said the sticking point is that the program does not include student residence, one of the requirements the AICTE is requiring. So the fourth cohort for the program is on hold. Dooley said he spoke with AICTE officials last month and the organization is not trying to keep institutions like Tech out of the country, but, absent other controls, it has to uniformly enforce stringent standards.
Dooley is hopeful India's parliament will address the issue in the spring and allow operations to continue. In the meantime, Tech and S.P. Jain are looking at the existing program to see what changes they could make.
"Without an existing government policy they're just trying to manage this influx," he said of the Indian government. "There is a political dynamic there. It's difficult to negotiate."
