Govt must do more to boost private participation in education: Experts

Call for rule tweak to allow institutes to accumulate surpluses and reinvest them

With government support in higher education saturating, various stakeholders have called for more private participation in the wake of the Union Budget announcements.

Unlike China, where universities are largely backed by the government, or America, where the share of private endowments is high, India has been in the median.

However, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman opening foreign direct investment (FDI) and external commercial borrowing (ECB) in higher education, sector experts believe the government could further push private participation.

Harvard University gets to invest an endowment worth $40 billion in various ways. Our higher education institutes lack that scope, stakeholders say.