Govt May Open Education, Legal Services for Foreigners

The government of India is mulling over to open education and legal services for foreigners.

Explaining about the country’s approach to open education sector, Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia said that, “Work is under progress for opening education and legal services for foreign players. A roadmap has been prepared in the beginning, opening online courses could be an option.”

“Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is doing something. Some professional bodies are also offering online courses. So, when we have such strong technical institutions with high reputation, can they do more of opening online courses and make those accessible to other countries. So, this could be one step,” she said.

While talking about opening of legal services for foreign players, she said the Commerce Ministry’s intention is to work with Bar Council of India (BCI) to move in a direction which is “calibrated and always reciprocal”.

Opening up of these two sectors is under discussion of the Committee of Secretaries (CoS).
The government is in consultation with the Bar Council of India and Society for Indian Law Firms (SILF) to open up legal services sector to foreigners in a calibrated manner.
The UK and the US have been pushing India to open up the sector to foreign firms.

(With input from PTI)