A study conducted by Parthenon Group has found that there are not many admirers for transnational education programs or Joint degree programs in India. This study attracts attention as the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill awaits clearance in the Indian parliament.

Based on the study Parthenon group says that low returns on Investment from Joint Degree programs is the main reason for the reduced demand for such programs. The Parthenon group is a business strategy consulting firm which operates in the area of education, corporate strategy, private equity, and health care.

Transnational Education

Transnational education program refers to higher education programs or courses where the student islocated in a country other than the one in which the awarding institution is based. Let us take the example of India. One way is that a university in India will collaborate with a foreign university to award a foreign degree to the students. So a student in India will join the institute in India and pursue the course. He or she will be awarded a degree by the foreign university. The second option is that a foreign university will start a franchise in India so that Indian students enroll for the foreign degree.

Higher course Fee for foreign degree courses

According to Karan Khemka, partner at Parthenon group, the course fee for obtaining a foreign degree in India is very much higher than that required for a an Indian degree. Even though the students need to pay a higher fee for obtaining degree from foreign institutes, the salary they earn in India after completing their degree is not higher than what students from Indian institutes earn. The study observes that the payback period in the case of foreign degrees is three times greater than Indian degrees. Parthenon Group points out that this is the main reason why transnational education programs do not achieve large scale success.

Statistics conveys

India stands first in offering such transnational programs when compared to other countries. According to a study conducted on foreign education providers in India in 2008, conducted by UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), there are as many 140 Indian institutions and 156 foreign institutions engaged in collaboration. The study says that there are 225 collaborations, where there is one or more programs offered by each collaboration. In 2008 there were a total of 635 programs that were delivered collaboratively by such providers.

There are opportunities to attract quality to the educational system even without passing a bill in the parliament. Based on the study Khemka says that transnational education programs are not found to be attractive by Indian students and so it is not going to make much of a difference.

In India the market for joint programs is $150 million out of which joint programs form $90 million and franchise forms $60 million. The number of students enrolling for joint programs were 21,000 and for franchise was 14,000 making a total of 35,000 students. The growth of enrollment for Trans education programs in India is very low as compared to other degree programs. The enrollment growth rate is between 3 to 4 per cent a year.

Higher Pay back period when compared to Indian degree courses

The study conducted by Parthenon shows that students across the world prefer courses based on the payback period. The students prefer a payback period of two years to three years at the maximum.

Pay back period refers to the period over which the student earns as salary from a job, what he or she has spent for obtaining the degree. For example, a student has to pay a course fee of Rs 10, 00,000 for obtaining his or her degree and the same student is expected to earn a salary of Rs 500,000 in a year after graduation. So the pay back period in this case is two years. According to the study a pay back period of two years is found to be attractive by the students.  In countries like Malaysia, where graduates from foreign universities speak better English than those local universities, students manage to earn better salary than those from local universities. In India the situation is different. Students from Trans national education programs earn a salary that is comparable with those from local universities. So they go for courses which are less expensive, but earn the same salary.

The comparative pay back period for transnational education program with local in India is 5.8 years which much greater than other countries. In Vietnam it is four years and in Brazil it is 1.1 years, Malaysia it is 2.8 years, and in Indonesia it is 2.5 years. According to a project manager at UKIERI, British Council India, most of the students who enroll for foreign degrees think that they will be paid higher salaries. But the research conducted by UKIERI has not proved it to be right because there is no evidence supporting this claim.

Adding new courses, a means to increase enrolment

Most of the institutes agree that adding new programs help in increasing the number of enrollments and said that they do it whenever they want to increase the number of enrollment at their institution. G D Goenka , director at World wide Institute says that they want to triple their enrollments in three years and that they will achieve this by adding new courses.

Rather than adding new courses institutions can search for new students because these courses that they add will seem insignificant when compared to other courses offered by local universities.

The findings of the study conducted by Parthenon were opposed by an official form the ministry of Human resource and Development. According to the official the bill has nothing to do with the enrollment of students in the universities and that the main concern of this bill is to bring quality institutions to India. He said that the matter of enrollment will be taken into consideration only after the bill is cleared in the parliament.