Most countries of the world nurture the aspiration to become the first choice and the favourite destination for international students. So does India, and quite legitimately so. India can claim to have one of the largest systems of higher education found anywhere in the world. It occupies the first position in the world as far as the number of higher education institutions is concerned. In terms of enrolment, India occupies the second position in the world and is all set to rise to the first position very soon.
Higher education policy planners and regulators believe that India offers quality higher education at the most affordable cost to international students both in terms of tuition and other charges payable to the higher education institutions as well as the cost of living even in the most expensive metropolises, district headquarters, commercial capitals and hubs and large towns of the country. Sadly, however, the experience so far, suggests that the nation has to travel a long distance to get any major presence registered in the global completion to promote and market its higher education to attract a significant number of international students.
The Study in India Programme (SIIP) was launched in 2018 with the specific purpose of attracting international students to India. It has then targeted to increase the number of international students in India to 2 lakh students over a period of five years. The target for the debut year itself was 18,000 additional students.
In 2017-18, the country had 46,146 international students in India. By 2019-20, the number of international students in the country had gone up to 49,348, an addition of 3,202 students over a period of two years. This cannot be said to be more than the usual rate of growth in international students in India.
The number of international students in India has actually declined to 48,035, but this could be attributed to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic that hit local, national and transnational travel adversely impinging on the global mobility of students. Sadly, this is not the first time that the targeted increase in international students coming to India has eluded us. The scheme of the Promotion of Indian Higher Education Abroad (PiHEAD) which was launched in 2004, after registering higher than usual increase in the number of international students over the two initial years could not sustain the moment.
Past experiences notwithstanding, the nation continues to nurture the hope, and rightly so, that India would soon become a potent option for students looking for quality higher education outside their national territories. The National Education Policy (NEP 2020), therefore, seeks to promote India as a global study destination for restoring its role as Vishwa Guru. In pursuance of the policy, guidelines for attracting international students to India are being repeatedly revisited and revised.
These efforts include the notification of revised guidelines by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2021. The approaches and guiding principles of attracting international students, however, continue to be based on the assumption that India offers quality higher education at affordable prices to international students but is unable to market itself well. It is also assumed that things would change in favour of India and that it must gear itself to accommodate a very large number of international students in its higher educational institutions.
These assumptions have been proven wrong in the past and continue to be flawed. Very few higher education institutions offer quality higher education in the country. Their numbers may not even touch a couple of thousands. This is despite the fact that the nation has more than 50,000 higher educational institutions spread across the length and breadth of the country. The fact that Indians account for the second-largest community of students pursuing higher education abroad.
The limited number of high-quality higher education institutions in the country have limited intake capacity and are, thus, highly selective. Only a paltry proportion of applicants are able to get selected for admission in them. International students, particularly, of those nationalities that usually aspire to study in India, find it particularly hard to cross the entry barriers.
The rest of the institutions are not likely to offer quality higher education or take care of international students. Presumably, it is for these reasons that the Study in India Programme (SIIP) permits just about 125 higher education institutions to be registered on its portal for granting admission to international students.
So is the assumption that India has a major comparative cost advantage to offer higher education at affordable prices to international students. Tuition and other charges by higher education institutions do on an average range between $ 2,000 to $10,000 a year but some of the premier higher education institutions have now started pegging at and benchmarking their fees with the best of the best global higher education institutions. Many Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) can be cited as the most glaring examples.
Going by the purchasing power parity, the cost of living–food, accommodation, transportation — in India even in the most expensive locations is indeed much lower than most of the European and North American destinations. But then there is a catch.
The most preferred global destinations of higher education allow international students to work and earn at least 20 hours per week. Additionally, many of them offer tuition waivers or other means of financial support like teaching and research assistantships, on-campus jobs and so on.
These effectually make studying in India more expensive than studying in most of the developed countries in the sense that those who study in India have to pay all education-related expenses out of their own pockets. In contrast, those studying in rich and developed countries are able to finance a predominant share of the cost of their education by earning in those countries themselves.
The potent possibility of getting post-study work visas and pursuing a lucrative career earning foreign currencies serves as icing on the cake.
Furqan Qamar is a professor at Department of Management Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, a central University under act of Parliament.