Indian higher education crisis: More Indians go abroad to study, and fewer international students come to India

Even as reports last week suggested that the number of Indian student going to the US had increased by 30 percent, the inflow of foreign students to India has declined sharply, according to government data. According to a report by The Times of India, data from the Union Ministry of Home affairs shows that the number of students coming to India from US, Germany, France, South Korea, Australia, China and Singapore had dropped by 73 percent from 13,961 in 2013 to 3,737 in 2014. [caption id=“attachment_2521152” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. AFP[/caption] The report also indicates that the number hadn’t just dropped for countries better placed than India, but even from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and African nations fewer people are turning to India for higher education. Adding to t his is a report in DNA which suggested that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bonhomie with Barack Obama had seen a huge surge in students from India studying in the US. According to the report Indian students going to the United States had risen by 29.4 percent within a year, compared to the six percent previous year following three years of consistent decline. There are, as of now, 1.33 lakh Indians studying in universities across the United States. In fact, it is not just to the US, more and more Indian students are looking to go abroad for higher education. According to a government report, India saw a huge jump in internationally mobile students with only 39,626 students in foreign countries in 1995 to 1,89,472 students going abroad in 2012. While the US has remained the top destination abroad to go for higher education, the government date shows that UK replaced Australia in 2012 as the second most coveted destination for getting a higher education. Though the Modi-Obama bonhomie and more students going to the US is well and good, the fact that lesser students are coming to India and more students are going abroad raises several questions about the quality of education in our country. A Hindustan Times in a report points out, “a part of the reason may have to do with perceptions of insecurity, owing to the attacks on women that inhibit parents from sending their children to the subcontinent.” Another problem faced by those coming from other countries is racial discrimination. South Sudanese students had complained to Home Minister Rajnath Singh about the issue at Pune’s Symbiosis International University in September. Singh had hence appealed, “From this platform, I want to appeal to all Indian students in Pune as well as in other parts of the country not to discriminate anyone and consider every one as brother. It is very unfortunate if any such incident takes place in our country.” The Hindustan Times also pointed out that declining level of education because of shortages of capable faculty and lack of government efforts is also a reason why fewer students are coming to India for higher education. This, may also be one of the reasons why more and more students are going out of India for their higher education, apart from may be a more prosperous middle class and easily available education loans. However, another reason for Indian students going abroad may be better scope and opportunity. As pointed out by Philip G Altbach in a report in The Hindu in 2014, “Not only are overseas programmes and departments more prestigious, they also have far better facilities, laboratories and a more favourable culture of research. Top faculty members are often more accessible and it is easier to become affiliated with a laboratory or institute. Academic politics exists everywhere, and Indians may suffer from occasional discrimination abroad, but overall academic conditions are likely to be better than at home.” With numbers projecting a pretty bleak picture of the Indian education system, the quickest solution could be government hiring better faculty members in universities, setting up more universities, labs and research centers across the country.