Centre launches Study in India to attract more foreign students

Around 15,000 seats in 160 premier universities and institutions across the country, including IITs and IIMs, up for grabs in the 2018-19 academic calendar.

India has launched the Study in India programme to draw more foreign students in about 160 premier universities and institutions across the country, including IITs and IIMs, with 15,000 seats in the 2018-19 academic year.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj with MoS HRD, Satyapal Singh, during the launch of ‘Study in India‘ portal in New Delhi.(PTI)

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday launched a portal to help prospective students get information about the institutions and also register and apply to the programmes of their choice through it.

“The quest for knowledge has always been fundamental to India’s culture and civilisation. We can rightly say that India is one of the very few places in the world where ancient traditions and modernity coexist in harmony,” Swaraj said stressing on the need to make India a knowledge hub once again.

‘India has been home to knowledge seekers from ancient times when scholars used to visit universities such as Nalanda and Takshila,” she added.

Minister of state for human resource development Satyapal Singh and diplomats from 30 countries were also present during the launch.

Study in India has a sanctioned budget of ₹150 crore for two years and will promote India as a top destination for higher education and funnel demand in the direction of the supernumerary seats.

The government aims at attracting 2,00,000 international students through the programme from the current 45,000 or 1% of the global student mobility.

“We observed that the number of students coming to India for higher studies had become stagnant and more students were going to countries like Singapore and Australia. That is when we decided to make a single spot information gateway to attract more students, make our visa process hassle free and also offer fee waiver to students,” human resource development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar said in a video message.

R Subrahmanyam, HRD ministry’s secretary (higher education), said the endeavour is a major step forward in freeing the Indian education market for foreign students.

The government will initially target 30 friendly countries, including Nepal, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Thailand, Malaysia, Egypt, Kuwait, Iran, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Rwanda, among others.

A senior HRD ministry official said 55% of the 15,000 seats are eligible for fee waivers.

The number of fee waiver schemes that have been announced include a complete fee waiver to the top 25% meritorious aspirants, 50% fee waiver to the next 25% and 25% to the rest of foreign students.