The central government, in a bid to attract more foreign students to India, is going to launch a year-long project called 'Study in India'. The project is aimed at taking the number of foreign students coming to India to over one lakh by 2020.
According to official records, 35,000-40,000 foreign students come to India every year on an average. In order to increase this number, EdCIL — an autonomous body under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), which is responsible for keeping the record of foreign students — is working on 'Study in India'. The HRD Ministry will support the organisation financially to implement the idea.
"We have submitted a detailed plan to the Ministry on what we plan to do to increase the number of foreign students, and the Ministry is fully supporting the plan. The idea is to promote Indian universities in foreign countries by doing roadshows, using social media, and through public interactions to inform students about good education institutions in India, and what we can offer them," an EdCIL official said.
"We have made a list of countries that we want to target under the plan — places where we think students will be interested in coming to India, specially in SAARC countries," the official added.
Out of the total number of international students across the globe, only 0.6 per cent come to India. Officials in the Ministry feel that apart from security concerns about coming to India, lack of information about Indian institutions available abroad is also one of the primary reasons for this number.
As per the latest report of Association of Indian Universities, students from 208 countries came to study in India in the year 2014-15. The majority of them were from Asia, followed by African countries, and only 1.61 per cent came from European countries.
"There are so many schemes that the government runs for international students including relaxation in terms of the minimum eligibility for admission, but many are not aware about it. Therefore the plan of promoting institutions abroad would work well for us," said a senior official in HRD Ministry.
AIMING HIGH
- According to data, 35,000-40,000 foreign students come to India every year.
- The central govt is aiming at increasing this number to one lakh by 2020.
