Industrial houses buying media companies is a recent trend as well, but their interest in universities may be a feature of the last decade. I distinctly remember a gathering with an Indian-born professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). it had been December 2008, and that our team mate was visiting Boston for work. The professor, the pinnacle of a department I shall not name, said many Indian business tycoons had been visiting him at MIT to hunt his help (and support) in fixing private universities in India.
The visibly perplexed professor told me that he had declined those requests. I used to be reminded of that conversation once I read. It’s a conspicuous example of that unfolding trend. Set up in 2009 by the steel and power industrialist Naveen Jindal, Jindal Global school of law (JGLS) was the primary school established under O.P. Jindal Global University in Sonipat, a city 35km north of latest Delhi.
Today, it’s the foremost sought-after school of law in India. This month, JGLS published a note saying it had placed 103 (out of about 500 students within the current batch) within the first round of placements itself. Cyril Amardas Mangalchand, India’s largest business firm, alone onboarded 44 candidates.
How are you able to not take note?
There are over 1,500 private law colleges and 23 National Law Universities (NLUs) in India. Yet, JGLS takes within the highest number of scholars, at about 900 per annum. It charges the foremost, too. For the five-year B.A. LLB (Honours), students pay nearly Rs 8 lakh (US$10,000) once a year, nearly 3 times the fees at the most NLUs. That’s an outsized number of scholars willing to pay an oversized amount of annual fee each year.
Let me just say the key of JGLS’s popularity (or success?) lies within the failure of NLUs. you have got to read our article which is an eye-opening story to fathom the type of upper education shift India is witnessing.
Have a good week ahead.
