India’s renewed push for transnational education is reshaping global higher education strategy. With regulatory reforms under the National Education Policy 2020 and openness to foreign university partnerships, India has become one of the leading TNE markets worldwide.
However, as universities accelerate into India, a new Symbiosis International report highlights a fundamental challenge: while there is often an assumption that employment frameworks can be standardised or exported from home institutions, in reality, there is no single workforce model that fits all TNE approaches.
Variations in labour law, immigration rules and payroll obligations mean UK or US hiring models cannot be applied directly in India without creating compliance risk. At the same time, TNE in India is not a single model – encapsulating dual degrees, validation partnerships, joint delivery and emerging international hubs, each requiring different staffing approaches.
Some rely on locally hired faculty, others on mixed local and expatriate teams, while many depend on short‑term or rotating staff from the home institution. This diversity means specific frameworks for each model must be adhered to.
The issue becomes exacerbated as programmes scale, evolve or cease. The report’s wider concerns around sustainability highlight how quickly these models can change, and how important it is to have workforce structures that can adapt without risk.
TNE delivery breaks down at programme level, not strategy level
In terms of strategy, universities are sophisticating their approach to India. The real pressure points emerge when, within a single institution, different programmes operate under entirely different staffing realities.
For example, if a university launches both a validation partnership and a dual degree programme in India, the validation partnership may require fully localised hiring to meet host country accreditation expectations, while the dual degree programme depends on regular inbound academic mobility. Without differentiated workforce planning, the university faces immediate inconsistencies and compliance risk.
We have seen that when universities and organisations adopt globally distributed programmes and strategies, the complexity of international hiring can quickly become a significant operational barrier. For example, a US university employed 33 graduate assistants across 17 countries and four continents over a 15-month period, with employment and payroll administered through locally compliant structures supported by Mauve Group.
Short‑term academic mobility is being used to support long‑term delivery
Many TNE programmes in India rely on short‑term or rotational faculty mobility to deliver teaching and maintain academic standards.
While effective initially, these arrangements are often used to sustain long‑term situations, gradually creating strain. Institutions struggle to maintain teaching consistency and manage repeated travel and deployment cycles, while immigration risk increases as short‑term visas are repeatedly used to support effectively permanent delivery.
The scale of offshore delivery exemplifies why this matters. Pre-pandemic, UK TNE enrolments exceeded 570,000 students, nearly matching the number of international students studying in the UK itself. A significant proportion of this delivery relies on flying faculty models, particularly in Asia. UK universities have repeatedly highlighted that maintaining academic quality across offshore provision is one of the most resource‑intensive aspects of TNE.
Without stable, compliant workforce frameworks, the strain compounds with time.
Workforce risks surface when programmes scale or change
One of the most persistent challenges in TNE is that workforce risk is often invisible at launch – appearing only when programs scale, evolve or exit.
As student numbers increase, institutions may need to move from visiting faculty to local hiring. But without planning for this transition, institutions risk a decline in governance alignment. Expansion into additional locations or changes in delivery partners can further complicate employment structures.
As student numbers increase, institutions may need to move from visiting faculty to local hiring. But without planning for this transition, institutions risk a decline in governance alignment
The long shadow of earlier international campus experiments reinforces this risk. The University of New South Wales’s renewed push to establish a campus in India follows the well‑documented failure of its Singapore venture, which closed within months after failing to achieve operational viability. The institution has explicitly acknowledged these lessons in its India strategy, underscoring how governance and workforce rigidity can undermine otherwise strong plans.
The same dynamic applies at exit. When campuses close, faculty must be terminated in line with local employment law. Institutions that lack compliant, locally grounded employment structures face legal exposure and reputational damage at precisely the moment they are under greatest scrutiny.
A workforce question universities can no longer defer
The key question for universities expanding into India is whether or not they can support changing delivery models with workforce frameworks that are compliant, flexible and defensible over time. There is no single employment model suited to India’s TNE landscape, yet workforce planning is still frequently treated as an operational issue rather than a strategic one.
Sector analysis has highlighted the planned closure of Texas A&M University’s Qatar campus by 2028 highlights how even long‑established arrangements can unwind. Less visible, but equally critical, is the workforce impact. When overseas campuses close, faculty must be terminated under local employment law, and failure to plan for this creates serious legal and reputational risk.
India’s expanding TNE environment raises the same challenge. As programmes scale, change or wind down, success will depend on applying the same rigour to workforce design as to academic delivery.
