More Indians are moving abroad for studies: RBI
NEW DELHI: More and more Indian students seem to prefer studying abroad, despite the government having stepped up its efforts to improve the quality of higher education institutions in the country. The number of foreign students coming to India, meanwhile, has declined.
Spending on tuition and hostel fees by Indian students studying abroad has shot up 44% from $1.9 billion in 2013-14 to $2.8 billion in 2017-18, while expenses of foreign students in India declined from $557 million in 2015-16 to $479 million in 2017-18, a four-yearlow, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
In 2015-16, when overseas education expenses by Indian students had fallen by 20% to $1.98 billion from $2.47 billion in the previous year, experts and government authorities had claimed that a growing number of quality institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, and central universities, were instrumental in curbing the exodus of Indian students. Tough immigration rules in countries such as the UK were also cited as a major reason for the reversal in trend.
Now, the sequential growth in overseas education expenditure indicates that more Indian students are going abroad for pursuing education. In fact, the flow of students to key destinations such as the US, the UK, and Australia has seen a steady rise. The number of Indian students studying in the US went up from 132,888 in 2014-15 to 186,267 in 2016-17.
Australia has also been a favourite destination. Rod Hilton, deputy high commissioner of Australia in India, said last week that his country is home to 68,000 Indian students (up from 60,000 in 2016), and education is a “flagship sector” in Australia-india relations.
However, the inflow of foreign students is at a decline. On 1 January 2018, the human resource development (HRD) ministry had informed the Lok Sabha that India had granted 36,887 student visas in 2017, as against 37,947 in 2016.