In covid times studying abroad no longer means going abroad

The raging COVID-19 pandemic has impacted almost all facets of our lives and in unprecedented ways, yet few areas have been affected as widely and deeply as the education sector. While millions of students missing out because of the digital divide has been the most obvious downside, several other generational shifts have also taken root in education in India. Among the more significant ones has been the shift in the approach of students and their families with regard to pursuing that cherished degree from a foreign higher educational institution.

Underlying this are several factors – the anxiety and uncertainty around the pandemic in the foreign country, the availability of online/blended learning alternatives, options to study world-class programmes in India and reduced incomes in the aftermath of the pandemic – all of which have combined to make ‘Studying Abroad’ a much less pleasant prospect. In fact, Government figures have already confirmed the trend, where the number of Indian students travelling abroad for higher education in 2020 fell by more than half year-on-year and is continuing to decline

Let us examine these factors in more detail. The predominant one is the additional anxieties that ‘Studying Abroad’ nowadays entails for parents and guardians, beyond just those of sending one’s child alone to a foreign land. The most uncomfortable among these involve trying to find out the COVID trends in and around the targeted foreign campus, working out the probability of abrupt lockdowns which would lead to an indefinite separation from family, and unravelling the complex maze of travel restrictions and health requirements.

What measures have been implemented on the college campus to prevent the spread COVID-19? What if my child is stuck in an indefinite lockdown abroad and gets infected? Will we be able to reach her/him on time, or vice versa, if the need arises? What additional costs might one have to incur? Will she/he be eligible for a booster dose in the foreign country? Amid such looming questions, families are predictably looking to stay in India itself.

Second, as a result of the pandemic, most foreign institutions, leveraging years of pedagogical research, training and preparedness, as well as investment in teaching technology, have been able to offer seamless and effective online learning for students. Such changes were overdue but languishing at the end of the pipeline of pedagogical innovation, with the pandemic finally pushing them towards implementation. Ergo, their usage has in fact enhanced the pedagogy and teachinglearning in most institutions, implicitly rendering physical presence in the classroom further unnecessary.

Of course, most foreign institutions have, governments permitting, devised strategies to bring international students to the foreign country, by offering deferrals, late joining, introducing new sessions and curating a blended approach to learning combining offline and online elements. However, the numbers show that these have not been persuasive enough for price-sensitive Indian households from a return-on-investment perspective.

Another major factor is the existence of several top-quality programmes from leading foreign institutions in India. With the recognition provided to collaborative and twinning arrangements by the New Education Policy 2020, many students and their advisors are looking into these international collaborations with a fresh perspective.

For the highest quality collaborations, not only is the programme curriculum offered in India identical to what is taught at the foreign campus, but there is also complete parity of assessment standards, so that the global standing and career opportunities available to the cohort graduating in India match those of students graduating from the foreign institution overseas. While the teaching is typically done by the Indian institution, the international partner provides extensive pedagogical training so that there is no gap in the quality of teaching and learning. Moreover, the local teacher is better at taking local sensibilities into account while imparting knowledge, benefiting students further.

The foreign institution also actively guides the local institution on a day-to-day basis, examination papers are sent back to the parent university for evaluation, professors from mother campuses visit regularly for guest lectures and the degree is globally recognized. The need for global exposure is also catered to by these programmes, as they offer options to attend summer school at the mother campus, or transfer to the foreign institution for a part of the programme, and also provide students with a competitive edge when applying for further study overseas. Costing a fraction of what it does to study the same programme on foreign soil, these arrangements therefore leave the Indian student the clear winner. Lastly, the huge expenses incurred for an on-campus college education abroad, at least in the popular destinations of the US, UK, Canada and Australia for Indian students, have gone beyond the realms of affordability for many families in the past year or so, as incomes have stagnated, gone down or even disappeared in many cases. So, while the affluent might still be looking to defer their plans of studying physically at a foreign campus, the much larger numbers of those who were stretching their finances have been forced to reassess their plans.

All these factors, circumstances and fallouts related to the COVID-19 pandemic have brought about a definitive change in the thinking of Indian students and their support system. ‘Studying Abroad’ no longer means ‘Going Abroad’ for many of them. So, while the ‘preference’ for an international higher education burns as bright as ever, I strongly believe that how students and their families go about acquiring one has changed for the foreseeable future.