Govt should deregulate higher education in India: Assocham

The government should deregulate higher education in the country to prevent repatriating over Rs 50,000 crore per annum as nearly five lakh students still go abroad to acquire better skills, industry body Assocham said.

The chamber said that higher education in India is so subsidised that on average, an IIT or an MBA student in reputed institutions shell out $120 per month as fees, while people who go for studies abroad spend between $1,500 and $5,000 fee per month for getting engineering or management degrees in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK.

"If higher education is deregulated, there is no reason why India cannot earn $50-100 billion per year and provide at least 10-20 million additional jobs in the field of education alone," it said.

Countries like Singapore are planning to have 1,50,000 foreign students. Australia has about four lakh, which earns for the country AUS$12 billion per year, it said, adding that India has only 27,000 foreign students and has no plans for any regulated increase because of controls in higher education.

The primary reason why a large number of Indian students go out of the country is mainly lack of capacity as domestic institutions are constrained in that respect.

About 99 per cent of those who appear in entrance examinations at the IITs and IIMs get rejected. Over 1,50,000 students every year go overseas for university education, which costs India a foreign exchange outflow of $10 billion per annum. This amount is sufficient to build many IIMs and IITs, it said.