Foreign universities will have to follow laws: Govt

New Delhi, Feb 6: The government, after allowing 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in higher education, would soon come out with regulations for foreign universities willing to set up campuses in the country.

A Group of Ministers (GoM) is working on the rules and conditions which foreign institutions will have to follow here, Minister of State for Human Resource Development M A Fatimi said.

He was replying to a question at the Editors' Conference on Social Sector Organised by the Press Information Bureau here.

Mr Fatimi said the extent of regulation may vary with the extent of FDI but all that would be finally decided by the GoM.

Replying to another question relating to one-stop education portal Sakshat launched by the Ministry, he said the government has a plan to connect all the government schools and colleges in the country through a computerised network which will make it possible for students to benefit from the expertise, knowledge and facilities of others institutions.

Mr Fatimi said ensuring access to education was the prime goal before the Ministry. To ensure that a large number of students, especially in rural areas, made use of Sakshat, the government would see that the price of lapttop could came down to within Rs 500.

He said at a time when more than forty per cent of the country's population was in the age group of six to 24 years, education has become the most crucial element in the efforts for national development.

The Minister said necessary resources were being provided to central elite institutions to augment their capacity to take in more students for implementing the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act for providing statutory reservation to SCs, STs and OBCs in such institutions.

The University Grants Commission has been given a plan budget of Rs 1270 crore in 2006-07, a substantial increase of over 68 per cent per cent over the previous year's allocation, so that it could give increased assistance to universities in general and central universities in the North East in particular, he said.

UNI