Every year, a few hundred thousand Indian students enrol into foreign universities and colleges to pursue programmes in higher education – and step into a lucrative career thereafter. Many of these students don’t return to India – either staying back in the country of their choice for higher education or moving elsewhere around the globe – unless it’s on a holiday or to fulfil obligations such as a family wedding or a death in the family.
What lures them there is better quality higher education and prospects of a better life that that education offers beyond obtaining an education and a degree. Tragically, India has been struggling with a strategy, a system and content on these contexts for the past 40 years. And, now, the gap is widening further fairly rapidly. The trends confidently show an ever-increasing number of Indian students seeking a foreign education.
US universities are by far the biggest attraction for Indian students, followed by universities in Australia, the UK and Canada. An article in University World News states 97,000 students from India enrolled for universities in the US last year, while an ICEF article mentions 49,265 Indian student enrolments in Australian universities in 2013. A January 2015 article in Zee News quotes a figure of over 50,000 Indian student enrolments in Australian universities in 2014.
Image courtesy hillpost.in
A BBC news story mentions 10,235 students from India had enrolled into UK universities in 2012-13, a lamentable drop from previous periods; and an article in Top Universities website suggests enrolments of over 12,000 Indian students in Canadian universities (though no accurate figure is quoted). If this is true, then Canadian universities have become a bigger draw for Indian students than universities in the UK.
Even universities in New Zealand, China and Germany have become attractive destinations for Indian students. Not to forget Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines. No matter which way we look, the trend for Indian students to go abroad to study is definitely a progressive one.
Although 200,000 or so Indian students going abroad to study in a year is a fraction of the 20-odd million students in Indian universities and colleges today, the figure is still significant if we consider the amount of money this universe of students is collectively spending on higher education. If Indian higher education provided education of quality and substance, this money would have remained in India and helped grow the Indian education sector.
So, here’s the question: Has Indian higher education missed its mark in capitalising an opportunity that now benefits other economies?
Let's Talk by Sunita Bose 