To win over foreign students, India must fix the post-study employment gap
India's ambitious and well-articulated goal of attracting 500,000 foreign students to its universities is beset by operational and structural inadequacies as well as a dearth of excellent placement chances in the nation's industrial sector. Still, India is undoubtedly of interest to international students.
According to research in the American Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, reasons for choosing to study in India include the chance to learn in an academic setting where English is the primary language, as well as the affordability of tuition and living costs. The promise of cultural immersion and the availability of a variety of academic programmes are also important draws.
The 'Study in India' campaign, launched officially in 2018 to establish India as a major international center for higher education, was administered by the Ministry of Education and carried out by EdCIL (India) Limited. It sought to draw foreign students to Indian colleges by providing top-notch instruction at reasonable prices. But after almost five years, it's clear that intent is insufficient on its own.
The numbers are self-evident. According to figures from the Ministry of Education, India hosted less than 47,000 international students in 2023. Even if there are some examples of institutional advancement, structural and operational inefficiencies plague the larger ecosystem. For the record, a majority of international students are from nearby countries like Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and the UAE, and others. Rwanda, Nigeria, Sudan, and other eastern African countries make up a respectable portion.
Internationally speaking U.S., Canada, and the U.K. together account for almost 40% of the worldwide international student flow. France, Australia, and Germany are the most alluring study abroad locations in comparison to the big three. China today has around 200,000 international students.
Also Read: Trump Effect : Opportunities for internationalisation of Indian universities
The Study in India programme is an interdepartmental endeavor to establish a clear path for international students to apply to and be admitted into India's most prestigious universities while offering them all the social and cultural assistance they need. Some top-ranked U.S. and Australian Universities are already talking about setting up campuses in India. It remains to be seen if these campuses can attract international students in the way Study in India seeks to grow.
However, the aforementioned AGMRD report lists several important obstacles, including excessive bureaucracy, safety worries, language problems, and doubts about academic quality. Students have identified a lack of support services, poor campus facilities, and inconsistent English education as the main barriers to their learning and integration.
Ways to attract students
Today, not many companies in India offer competitive remuneration that is comparable to what students in the U.S. or Europe would have received. R. Subrahmanyam, a former Secretary in the Indian government, says, 'Why do students travel abroad to further their education? It encompasses more than just an institution's calibre or the degree it offers. Crucially, it is for well-paying jobs that are commensurate with the level of study, time, and money a student spends on their higher education.'
According to him, this basically suggests that working in India after completing your studies is not seen as a desirable option. According to student comments, delays and communication gaps persist even after the establishment of a dedicated portal. Furthermore, even though colleges have been invited to take part in the programme, many of them are ill-equipped or unmotivated to offer a globally competitive academic and cultural environment.
This stands in stark contrast to successful international education destinations such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and even up-and-coming hubs like Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. These nations offer international students comprehensive orientation, mentorship, and alumni support services in addition to strong infrastructure and highly regarded universities.
Even when it is reasonably priced, India's existing product frequently lacks the ecology needed for long-term reputation-building and retention. Despite the government's best efforts, such as bilateral education agreements and scholarship programmes, these structural weaknesses have not been sufficiently addressed. Better execution is what's needed.
Areas that require attention
First and foremost, India needs to implement a cohesive, well-thought-out foreign marketing plan that not only advertises its colleges but also presents a hospitable and uniform image throughout the world. In this narrative-building effort, embassies, Indian cultural centers, and alumni living abroad can all be quite important.
Starting with a 'Semester in India' is one of the calibrated methods to make studying in India a reality. This calls for an institute-to-institution collaboration in which the curriculum is exchanged and students from both sides have the chance to study in India for a semester, notes Mr. Subrahmanyam.
And, indeed, online learning is a fantastic strategy to draw international students to Indian universities, particularly when combined with institutions like IITs and IIMs. An online programme from the top institute with a chance of immersive learning for a week or more, including exposure to Indian culture and society, is a great proposition. This needs structured and scalable protocols.
A streamlined and time-bound visa and admissions procedure is crucial, according to those participating in Study in India. For international student admissions, establishing a single-window clearance process might greatly reduce wait times and improve the entire experience. By hiring the top industries that can provide competitive compensation packages for qualified international students, we can create a more reliable work visa system that pays well.
Third, support networks and academic quality need to be strengthened. Universities must make investments in language labs, infrastructure, and cultural acculturation initiatives. This is an area where some of the best private universities are performing well.
Classroom diversity and academic rigour will be enhanced by providing professors with cross-cultural teaching training and encouraging international cooperation. Lastly, safety must be given top priority as it is an unavoidable component of international movement. Building trust will be greatly aided by gender-sensitive campus programs, grievance redressal procedures, and visible safety measures.
Benefits of Indian education
A few months ago, writing in a newspaper from Delhi, Sachin Jain, an expert on international student, gave a strategic idea: presentl,y there are currently 400,000 GRE test takers from 190 countries. If we focus on the GRE test takers from West Asia, North Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia—countries that are closer to India and where there is a desire for and appreciation of Indian higher education—we can simply begin pitching Indian institutions and their programmes.
Cost and other considerations appear to favor India as we examine its potential to become a global center for education. India addresses many of the worldwide challenges faced by conventional study abroad markets, such as the lack of post-study employment possibilities, the cap on student visas, and the rising cost of living. India has a competitive edge over more conventional travel locations like the U.S., U.K., Australia, or Canada in terms of tuition costs, housing costs, post-study employment prospects, and even cultural experiences.
In sum, the Study in India programme has genuine promise. India has the potential to play a significant role in the global education scene because of its extensive English-speaking population, centuries-old academic traditions, and expanding economy. However, by tackling the major systemic problems and placing the needs of the students at the forefront of the reform process, can be a great way forward.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
24 minutes ago
- Time of India
China leaders take reins at TikTok Shop in US as sales miss goal
ByteDance Ltd., TikTok 's parent company, has been replacing US-hired staff near Seattle with leaders connected to China, aiming to replicate its e-commerce success in Asia after sales fell short in America. TikTok Shop initially set a goal to increase its US e-commerce business tenfold last year to $17.5 billion in transaction volume, but the company had to drastically lower that goal, according to people familiar with the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly. TikTok established its Shop business in the Seattle area near Inc., the online retail giant it was aiming to displace. Meetings that used to be held in English are now often conducted in Mandarin and managers increasingly write in Chinese when communicating on Feishu, ByteDance's internal Slack-like app, with English-speaking staff forced to rely on the built-in translation function. More than 100 TikTok Shop employees in the US have been fired or have left amid confusion between leaders that has worsened the work environment, according to people familiar with the company. The cultural transition taking place in the company coincides with its fight for survival in the US — due mainly to the app's Chinese ties. A national security law passed by Congress last year requires TikTok's US business to be spun off from its Chinese parent company or it will face a ban. Lawmakers warned that TikTok's ties to China pose a threat to the safety and security of American users. President Donald Trump has twice delayed the ban — with legal assurances from his attorney general — and another deadline for divestiture looms later this month, though that might also be extended, Wall Street Journal has reported. ByteDance has said it doesn't intend to sell. The TikTok Shop near Seattle in February began requiring workers to be in the office five days a week for eight hours a day, according to a memo reviewed by Bloomberg. The change is in contrast to some other major tech companies that still offer flexible work schedules, and has been particularly burdensome for employees who often join late-night calls with colleagues in Asia after they leave the office, according to former employees. US-based staff require human resources and manager pre-approval to work from home. The changes were introduced after Bob Kang, China-based global head of TikTok's e-commerce division, visited the office in Bellevue, Washington, earlier this year and found there weren't enough staff pressent on a work day, according to multiple people who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Increasing influence Increasing Chinese influence over TikTok's fastest-growing business may raise questions about its previous corporate promise to distance the US operation from China. After Trump initially tried to ban the app during his first term, the company announced a security plan dubbed 'Project Texas' and vowed to wall off the app's US data and operations from any Chinese oversight. TikTok Shop is the biggest source of revenue for the video-sharing app besides advertising, and it has become a major investment area for ByteDance. Adding full-scale commerce to its eye-catching content and popular influencers sets it apart from rivals like Instagram and YouTube. The company still aims to challenge Amazon in major markets. To better compete, TikTok Shop recruited aggressively near Seattle over the past three years, targeting people with experience at Amazon, according to a review of Linkedin profiles and people who worked at both companies. In some corners of TikTok's Bellevue office of roughly 1,000 employees, the workflow felt like a remix of previous Amazon teams, the people said. But since January, growing tension in the teams below Kang and Nico Le Bourgeois, who oversaw TikTok's e-commerce operations in the US, became a distraction for staff who were often unsure about whose orders to follow, the people said. TikTok's uncertain fate in the US also weighed on morale. The company carried out a round of layoffs in April. A second batch followed in May. In the first round, Le Bourgeois was demoted when Mu Qing, a Chinese executive from ByteDance's e-commerce platform Douyin moved to the Seattle area to run TikTok Shop in the US. After the second bout, Mu sent an internal message saying Le Bourgeois was leaving to pursue other opportunities, according to a copy of the message seen by Bloomberg. Those cuts were intended to improve TikTok's 'efficiency,' according to former employees, though it wasn't clear to staff what factors contributed to a worker's efficiency rating. More like Douyin With these changes, ByteDance leaders are bringing in people who are familiar with what worked for the company in China, where Douyin, its TikTok clone for the Chinese market, has evolved into a $490 billion shopping phenomenon. In addition to Mu, who was the head of Douyin's e-commerce, six other leaders with Chinese backgrounds were appointed in April, according to a different internal memo from Kang viewed by Bloomberg. One challenge is that habits of many American users trend toward passive TikTok scrolling as opposed to making purchases in the app. Some US sellers told Bloomberg that they have also been reluctant to invest in the platform, given the possible ban. The final tally for 2024 sales came in at around $9 billion, according to an estimate by Singapore-based consultancy Momentum Works, far below the internal goal of $17.5 billion in transaction volume. A TikTok spokesperson previously called the $17.5 billion internal goal 'inaccurate.' TikTok Shop's US struggles haven't halted the company's global shopping ambitions. ByteDance in 2021 rolled out e-commerce services in countries including Indonesia, Vietnam and the UK. In Southeast Asia, it's already the region's biggest shopping platform after Shopee, according to Momentum Works. Last year, TikTok Shop opened in five countries in Europe, including Germany and Spain. The Europe expansion was delayed because the company first prioritised US growth, Bloomberg reported. A TikTok spokesperson did not respond to an emailed request for comment for this story. This is a crucial month for TikTok in the US. The company will host merchants and creators in Los Angeles next week for a summit featuring some of the new leaders of the e-commerce unit. The current deadline for ByteDance to sell the TikTok's US operation is June 19 and there have been several interested suitors. The company came close to a possible spin-off in April to a consortium of investors that included Oracle Corp., but the deal was scuttled in part because of Trump's trade war with China. Meanwhile, the churn of e-commerce employment continues in the Seattle area. Current and former TikTok Shop employees told Bloomberg that they get hounded by recruiting messages from Temu , another Chinese e-commerce competitor.
Hindustan Times
26 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Himanta says drive to identify foreigners to be 'accelerated'; AAMSU protests 'harassment'
Guwahati, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday asserted that the process of identifying illegal foreigners, which was "paused" due to NRC-related matters, will be accelerated, even as protests were witnessed in different parts of the state during Eid prayers on Saturday over "pushback" and "harassment" of minorities in the name of detecting illegal immigrants. Sarma maintained that the state government was looking into the details of an old law, which allows it to "push back" the declared infiltrators without having to mandatorily approach the judiciary. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a programme in Nalbari, Sarma said that a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court, while hearing a case on Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, had said that there is no legal requirement for the Assam government to always approach the judiciary in order to identify foreigners. "There exists an immigrants expel order, which is an old law. The Supreme Court has said that this law is in force and a deputy commissioner can give permission for immediate pushback under it," he maintained. "For whatever reason, our lawyers had not informed us and we too didn't know about it. The entire matter has come to light in the last few days. We will now discuss it further," he added. The chief minister said pushing back illegal migrants will continue, adding that the process of identifying foreigners, which had been paused due to NRC-related matters, will now be accelerated. "And when the identification of a foreigner happens, there will be no need to send the case to any tribunal. We will directly push them back. We have been preparing for it," he added. Sarma said the process of pushback will continue, though no person with a case pending before the court will be sent back. Meanwhile, members and supporters of the All Assam Minority Students' Union wore black badges and displayed placards against the purported recent pushback of Bangladeshis in the state. They carried out the protest in different parts, including Chirang and Jogighopa, after Eid namaz. AAMSU president Rejaul Karim Sarkar maintained that more intensified protests will be carried out if the government does not stop "harassment" of genuine citizens. "We have seen cases where the entire family is Indian but one member is taken away as an illegal foreigner. Such acts are against humanity. The government should stop harassment of genuine citizens, else we will carry out more agitations in a democratic manner," he said.
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
26 minutes ago
- First Post
The Deng doctrine: How China weaponises rare earths to gain leverage in trade war with the US
China has signalled for more than 15 years that it was looking to weaponise areas of the global supply chain, a strategy modelled on longstanding American export controls Beijing views as aimed at stalling its rise. read more China has long indicated its intention to weaponise parts of the global supply chain—a strategy now visibly playing out through tighter control of rare earth exports. Modelled on longstanding US export restrictions that Beijing believes are designed to limit its technological rise, China is now turning similar tools to its own advantage. The recent rush by companies to secure export licences for rare earth materials, culminating in a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, highlights how Beijing has refined a powerful lever in the ongoing trade war. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Industry experts say China may approve more shipments in the near term but it has no plans to dismantle the new system underpinning those approvals. Instead, China's new export licensing regime, closely mirroring the US model grants the government deeper visibility into global supply chokepoints including critical sectors such as electric vehicle motors and precision systems used in missiles. This level of control offers Beijing a potent means to retaliate in the trade dispute while asserting dominance in strategically vital markets. China sharpens rare earth export controls in trade war playbook As relations between the two countries sour and supply chains fracture, both Washington and Beijing appear determined to shift from broad tariffs to more focused, technical barriers—ones that could have lasting implications for industries worldwide. 'China originally took inspiration for these export control methods from the comprehensive U.S. sanctions regime,' Zhu Junwei, a scholar at the Grandview Institution, a Beijing-based think tank focused on international relations told Reuters. 'China has been trying to build its own export control systems since then, to be used as a last resort.' After a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump said the two leaders were 'straightening out some of the points,' particularly regarding rare earth magnets—key components in electric vehicle (EV) motors and high-tech weaponry. But Trump did not confirm whether Beijing had agreed to speed up export licensing, a sticking point since Washington imposed restrictions on chip design software and jet engines over what it calls China's deliberate slow-walking of approvals. China, which holds a near-monopoly on rare earth magnets, added some of the most advanced types to its export control list in April. The move forces all exporters to seek government licences before shipping these materials, turning a once-obscure division of the commerce ministry—staffed by around 60 people—into a powerful gatekeeper of global manufacturing. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The export curbs, part of a broader retaliation package against US tariffs, have had ripple effects well beyond the US. Several European auto parts manufacturers were forced to shut down production lines this week after exhausting their supply of rare earth magnets, underscoring the global reach of Beijing's measures. Though China's commerce ministry has not publicly commented on the issue, analysts say the blanket controls offer Beijing both leverage in its trade war with Washington and a strategic tool to reshape global supply chains in its favour. 'Beijing has a degree of plausible deniability – no one can prove China is doing this on purpose,' Noah Barkin, senior adviser at Rhodium Group, a China-focused U.S. thinktank told Reuters. 'But the rate of approvals is a pretty clear signal that China is sending a message, exerting pressure to prevent trade negotiations with the U.S. leading to additional technology control.' China mines about 70% of the world's rare earths but maintains a near-monopoly on refining and processing, giving it a powerful position in global manufacturing. Even if export approvals accelerate, as U.S. President Donald Trump indicated after a call with President Xi Jinping, Beijing's new licensing system offers it unprecedented visibility into how companies use these critical materials. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD European and U.S. executives warn that by forcing exporters to apply for licences, China's government can now closely monitor supplier chokepoints in sectors ranging from electric vehicles to advanced weaponry, oversight that other governments lack due to the complexity of global supply chains. Hundreds of Japanese companies are expected to need Chinese export approvals for rare earth magnets in the coming weeks, a person lobbying on their behalf told Reuters. Without timely licences, they risk production disruptions, underscoring how Beijing's new trade tools could reshape access to materials essential to modern industry. 'It's sharpening China's scalpel,' said a US-based executive at a company seeking to piece together an alternative supply chain who sought anonymity. 'It's not a way to oversee the export of magnets, but a way to gain influence and advantage over America.' China's export controls deepen as fears grow over weaponisation of supply chain power Fears that China could weaponise its dominance in critical supply chains first emerged in 2010, when it briefly halted rare earth exports to Japan during a territorial dispute. But those concerns have intensified in recent years as Beijing sharpens its trade tools and broadens export restrictions across strategic sectors. As far back as 1992, former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping noted, 'The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths.' That sentiment has shaped policy: in 2020, China passed a sweeping Export Control Law allowing it to restrict exports of any items deemed vital to national security, including materials, technology and data. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Since then, China has built up its own sanctions arsenal in response to U.S. restrictions, investing heavily in alternative supply chains while tightening its grip on key exports. In 2022, the United States imposed broad curbs on chip and semiconductor tool exports to China, aiming to slow the country's military and AI advancements. But analysts say Beijing has continued to make headway despite those barriers. In retaliation, China has steadily expanded its export controls. Last year it imposed licensing requirements for gallium, germanium, and certain graphite products—vital inputs for defence, electronics, and green technologies. Shipments of these minerals to the U.S. were banned outright in December. Then in February, China added five more metals to its control list. Now, following a phone call between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, attention has turned to whether China will ease its latest rare earth export curbs. But analysts warn of a lack of transparency. 'It's virtually impossible to know what percentage of requests for non-military end users get approved because the data is not public and companies don't want to publicly confirm either way,' said Cory Combs, an analyst at China-focused consultancy Trivium. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The opaqueness of Beijing's process and its expanding powers over chokepoint materials are reinforcing Western concerns that supply chains are becoming geopolitical battlegrounds. With inputs from agencies
