Studying and teaching at UK degree programmes in India

Purpose - Branch campuses and other types of partnerships are becoming increasingly common where a degree provider starts offering a programme in another nation. The aim of this paper is to focus specifically on the student and staff experience of learning in UK degree programmes operating in India. Design/methodology/approach - The methodology followed for this study was qualitative. Open-ended responses were invited from students and members of faculty about their experiences from two UK degree programmes in India. The data were analysed by using open coding which led to the identification of major categories. Findings - Students expressed high level of satisfaction related to the internal environment particularly the quality of education provided by a foreign degree. But they also worry about the regulatory environment, branding and industry linkages of such programmes. Research limitations/implications - One of the most obvious limitations of this research is that the results cannot be generalized. The satisfaction with the academic engagement expressed by the students and the faculty could be due the strong systems put in place by these specific partnerships and not a generic feature of transnational partnerships. Practical implications - This paper highlights that the educational issues important in the host nation may be different to the home nation. So equivalence of degrees or even rankings in the home country may not automatically get transferred in the host nation. Originality/value - Student and faculty experience of learning in a foreign degree programme without leaving their country is underreported in the literature. To the best of the author's knowledge no work exists on the foreign degree programmes existing in India and this paper is the first attempt to research the issues related to transnational education in India.