To facilitate Internationalization of Higher Education in India, a Programme viz. ‘Study in India’ is under implementation with the objectives to make India a preferred education destination/hub for foreign students; improve the soft power of India with focus on the neighbouring countries and use it as a tool in diplomacy; to rapidly increase the inflow of inbound International Students in India through systematic brand-building, marketing, social media and digital marketing campaigns; to increase India’s market share of global education exports; improvement in overall quality of higher education; to reduce the export-import imbalance in the number of international students; growth in India’s global market share of International students; and increase in global ranking of India etc.
The programme focuses on attracting International students from select 30 plus countries across South-East Asia, Middle East and Africa. The programme envisages participation of select reputed Indian institutes/universities by way of offering seats for the International students at affordable rates, along with fee waivers to meritorious foreign students ranging from 100% to 25%. A centralised admission web-portal (https://studyinindia.gov.in) acts as a single window for the admission of foreign students.
Moreover, the programme also envisages setting up of call centres for support; algorithm for allocation of seats to the meritorious candidates; selection of top 100 partner institutions on the basis of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) grading and National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking; branding activities in the target countries; and close coordination with Indian missions abroad and foreign missions in India.
With the increase in number of foreign students, the global ranking of the Indian Higher Educational institutions will improve. The domestic students shall be exposed to a more diverse peer group and also get greater International exposure culminating in enhanced interest of Indian students to study in the country.
This information was given by the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
