Opportunities for doing research in India are growing by the day. One such is the HU-JU, U.S.-India Research Initiative that bring students from the US to Kolkata. The US/India Research Initiative Howard University and Jadavpur University Research Initiative Program select three Master’s and Ph.D. students to go to India. Their research effort will span 2 months.
Today, the Government of India is shifting aim towards making things easier for Indian students who want to pursue their higher studies. This two pronged plan involves retaining the brain power in India as one of the main focus and inspiring more foreign universities to set up educational institutions in India as the other focus. Ostensibly, bringing home the education is primarily to save foreign exchange.
The huge brain drain we see happening needs to be stopped. Students who do not make it to the top institutes in India because there aren’t enough seats look towards the foreign universities. Invariably, their careers too get tied up in the foreign soils. This makes many innovations and useful applications designed by Indian origin people to land in foreign hands.
The cost of education might come down considerably if foreign universities come to India. Studying in India will help students because they will find local sponsors and getting loans from banks too will be easy. Compare this to the situation where the students go abroad and dish out valuable foreign exchange to make pay for the tuition fees, other than their boarding and lodging.
In this context, a crucial meeting has been called by the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi which will seek light to opening roads for foreign universities to set up local campuses. The way forward for the politician is to sway with the breeze. Though Mr. Modi’s party the BJP had its shackles raised when the UPA government had proposed the setting up of such campuses, it sees good mileage now in carrying the flag forward as if it were its own.
The meeting will be held on June 11th at the residence of the Prime Minister. Head of NITI Aayog, Cabinet secretary, Ministry of Expenditure secretary, Foreign secretary, University Grants Commission chairman and the secretary of the HRD ministry will be among the attendees. This will prove to be the most positive effort taken by the Prime Minister in the field of bettering education in India.
The NITI Aayog for its part has come up with a four-fold plan that will help to establish Foreign University Campuses in India. This proposal was put forward by the HRD minister Ms. Smriti Irani who outlined the plan as one that would establish stricter and better regulations in the first place. India would be harnessing foreign investment and using it to become a country with higher standards in education. And lastly, India would ‘leverage soft power’ in order to achieve its goals. She looked forward to various states of India to come forward with their view and standpoint on many related themes of which one was “Internationalisation of Education.”
Will this reverse the trend of “student migration” and bring more students to India? Certainly, this seems to be indicated. In a UNESCO study, we see that the outbound students from India number 180,000 – 200,000 every year. The number of in-bound students number only 1 or 2. Creating more world class universities will definitely change the equation. It opens the doors of opportunity for all sectors because where there is education, there will always be growth.
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