'China ahead of India in creating world class institutions'

China is ahead of India in creating world class institutions, said Richard C Levin, President of Yale University.

Unlike its counterpart, India has focused on increasing the number of institutions, rather than creating world-class educational institutions.

The Chinese government had focused on 10 universities including Peking and Tsinghua to compete in global arena as compared to none by India, which has focused on setting up new higher education institutions to cater to growing demand for higher education.

"China's Peking University would be among top 25 universities in the world in a decade. And, India has opted for egalitarian tendency for setting more universities," Levin told Hindustan Times on Wednesday.

Levin also finds popular US sentiment in favour of China than India primarily because of size of the Chinese economy and its focus on the US market. Recent US data have shown that the number of US students taking admission in Chinese universities is increasing at a much higher rate than in India.

But, he believes that India has an advantage over China because of its free society but it needs to invest more for research in its universities as done in the developed world.

Levin is in India to explore more research partnership for Yale University and would be discussing future of foreign education providers in India with HRD minister Kapil Sibal.

Yale like many US universities such as Harvard and MIT has ruled out setting up a campus in India in near future.

Levin, however, found delay in enactment of Foreign Education Providers Bill and Innovation University Bill as an impediment in attracting foreign universities in India.

"Quite of them (US universities) will be interest for independent entry into the Indian market, if the (Foreign Education Providers) bill is passed," he said, while referring to heads of some US universities during Indo-US Education Summit in Washington last month.

Sibal has already held a couple of meeting with MPs belonging to UPA in his bid to get the bills passed in winter session of Parliament.

US-based universities had shown interest in India with President of Columbia University Lee C Bollinger meeting HRD minister Sibal earlier this week. Bollinder is believed to have discussed the possibility of Columbia University initiating a partnership with an Indian University in 2012.  

HRD ministry officials said that the partnership between India and US universities are likely to strengthen when US secretary for state Hillary Clinton visits India in December to participate in Indo-US Education Summit. The first part of the summit was held in Washington in October this year.