‘Study in India’: The slogan for foreign university aspirants
Amid pandemic and travel curbs, many opt for courses in Indian varsities
MUMBAI : With the travel restrictions amid the Covid-19 pandemic and uncertainty, students are dropping their plans to study abroad altogether, making India their top choice instead.
For example, Renuka Bankar from Sangli had plans of pursuing a PHD at the University of Colorado, after completing her Masters in Science in Virology from the National Institute of Virology in Pune last year. After clearing a series of interviews, she began her application process, when the first lockdown was announced in March last year.
Without wanting to waste any time, she soon took the National Eligibility Test (NET) for admissions to Indian institutes. Since then, Bankar has been working as a Junior Research Fellow for a Covid-19related project at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay. “This is a projectbased work that will extend for a few more months. After that I will start applying for PHD in an institute in India,” she said, adding that her plans of going abroad have been cancelled.
Like Bankar, many are making India their top choice. “One of the biggest advantages of going to a foreign university is that we get to interact with people from all over the world. Studying online is not the same. Most of us pursuing research do not have a lot of time to wait around, so it makes sense to get admitted to an Indian institute of repute,” said another research scholar, from IIT Bombay, on condition of anonymity.
For admission to PHD seats as Junior Research Fellows (JRF) at various institutes in the country, candidates must qualify the NET exam, which is held in June and December every year. However, with the lockdown, the June 2020 session was postponed and held in December last year. The December 2020 session was held this month. According to Anjan Ray, head, Human Resource Development GROUP-CSIR, which conducts the NET exams, the pandemic has only accelerated the existing phenomena of more researchers choosing India over foreign countries.
In 2016, the June session saw applications from 1.57 lakh candidates for JRF positions at institutes affiliated to both CSIR and University Grants Commission (UGC). This dropped to 1.63 lakh in 2017, 1.55 lakh in 2018, 1.53 lakh in 2019.
However, in 2020, the June session received 1.71 lakh applications, of which 2,247 qualified for CSIR JRF and 1,638 for UGC JRF. “As a conservative estimate, we have usually seen that half or one-third of those who qualify apply for jobs or PHD in India. A majority of the rest are expected to go abroad,” Ray explained.
He said that over the past few years, however, this number has come down. For instance, in 2017, a total of 2,920 candidates applied for PHD in India. In 2018 and 2019, 1,601 and 1,127 candidates applied, respectively. However, those who qualified in 2018 and 2019 are still eligible to apply as results are valid for three years.
“This means more people are expected to apply. This can be attributed to the fact that India is not able to retain more talent through a good fellowship programme. Another reason could be that many Indian senior researchers, working abroad, are returning and are now available as PHD guides to more students,” said Ray, adding that this is a gain for Indian academia.