Indian varsities no magnets for foreign students

Updated on: Friday, October 28, 2011

Every year, close to 1.5 lakh Indian students sign out of the domestic education sector to pursue a foreign degree. The counter-flow, however, is nothing to write home about, with the intake of students from abroad to India plateauing in recent years.

A head count of foreign students taken by the HRD ministry for 2008-09 showed that the enrollment of international students in Indian varsities was up by a modest 500 to touch 21,778. This barely conspicuous increase took place at a time when the foreign student population in universities across the world was growing at the frenetic pace of 65 per cent since 2000.

Modest or otherwise, where are the international candidates coming to India heading? A study by Beena Shah and Usha Rai Negi from the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) shows they are mostly going southwards: five of the top ten most popular universities hosting foreign students are in the southern states, deemed universities included.

AIU's data shows that most foreign students signed up for distance education courses at Delhi's Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). When it came to full-time programmes, however, they preferred going to smaller towns, where the cost of living was within their means, like Pune. The University of Pune and Symbiosis University together make this city in Maharashtra home to the largest contingent of international students. "We have built special hostels for foreign students and established a centre catering to them, with a liaison officer for international students," says ex-Pune university vice-chancellor R V Shevgaonkar.

The Pune varsities also participated in several international education fairs throughout the year, selling the 'Oxford of the East' concept to many a West Asian.

Pune University slips

However, Pune University, which used to top the charts at one time, slipped to the number two spot in 2007-08. IGNOU stole a march over it after it jettisoned its earlier patchy approach, where students had to approach several counters to get information, and instead designed special information booklets for foreign students with handy data. An international students division came up two years ago.

With close to 1,500 international students, the rather young Mysore University has also scored in the game, attracting students from Asia and Africa. R Indira, director of the varsity's International Centre, says, "We also have a lot of Chinese students coming down as part of twinning programmes. Currently there are about 100 Chinese students pursuing both undergraduate and post-graduate studies." Iran sent the highest number of foreign students to this university (388 students now), besides Afghanistan and Tanzania.

At the Mysore University campus, most international students pursue commerce, followed by a Bachelor's in business management and computer science. "Life for a student is relatively inexpensive because Mysore is a small city. Although we charge a higher fee for international students, it cannot by any stretch of the imagination be termed even expensive, forget exorbitant," says Indira.

Apart from Pune's Symbiosis, Manipal, another deemed university, has been maintaining a steady flow of international students. K Ramnarayan, VC of Manipal University, says that nearly half its international students are from Malaysia. "We have had a long-standing relationship with Malaysia, and the health sciences programme that we offer is recognised by the Malaysian government," he says. "This provides us an edge in drawing students from that country. A good number of students come from the US and Canada because of the twinning programmes we have been offering."

Around the world, internationalisation has caught on like never before. Experts say that the classroom called India will turn global after foreign campuses arrive on its shores.

Where do they come from?

Iran ------------- 2972 Ethopia --------- 1937 UAE ------------- 1726 Nepal ------------ 1711 Afghanistan ----- 1192 Saudi Arabia ---- 1043 China -------------- 873 Sri Lanka ----------742 Bhutan ------------- 680

Times of India

Indian varsities no magnets for foreign students

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