A data from the union ministry of Home affairs indicates a massive drop in number of foreign students from among seven countries, including US, Germany, France, South Korea, Australia, China and Singapore. The percentage drop recorded is 73%, from 13961 in 2013 to 3737 in 2014. Bad publicity of India and downward trend in quality of education in India can be blamed for the consequence.
However, the drop was marginal in 2013 from 2012, where number of foreign students was 12424. The experts suggest that we must improve quality of our institutions, so that more and more foreign students could be attracted towards India.
IISc, being the only Indian Institute ranked among top 100 global institutions, had only 25 foreign students enrolled in full-time courses. Usha Vijayaraghavan, IISc International Cell Chairperson said “While we’re doing collaborative work with best universities abroad, the challenge is to attract more foreign students and faculty to do research here. We have a long way to go.”
Whereas IIT- Bangalore Founder Director S Sadagopan says “The government has not understood the soft power of higher education. It obviously cannot be measured or quantified in dollars. But we will have ambassadors for life. Take Manmohan Singh, for example. He passed out of Cambridge 55 years ago, but still has a soft corner for it. I studied in the US for four years about 40 years ago. I may not like everything the US does, but I have a soft corner for it.” He adding to his remark said “One reason for the decline could be the bad publicity India is getting.”
