…in the formal Education Sector.
In today’s world, education is everyone’s birthright. And in a globalized economy and digital era, global education is a realistic dream. Technology must be leveraged to connect prospective students and education providers through objective advice, and to offer them engaging content to make correct choices. Through innovation, we must make education global by creating a one-stop platform for the global education journey of prospective students. The platform should have all the information students need in one accessible place. The application process should be unified and seamless, which will help students make the best decisions for their future career goals. To sum up, the objective should be to simplify the world of education through technology, using an AI-powered platform for the global community of students to ‘Study in India’. It should be all in one place.
In 2022 alone, around 750,000 students went abroad for higher education. Even as the number of Indian students opting for higher education overseas grows annually, their abroad spending is set to grow from the current annual $28 billion to $80 billion by 2024, according to the latest ‘Higher Education Abroad’ report by consulting firm Redseer. The report says the number of Indian students heading to foreign destinations for higher studies is set to grow further to 1.8 million by 2024.
In the past few decades, there has been a remarkable surge in international students coming to study in the world’s major economies like the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, China, Singapore, and even smaller CIS countries; they have become a significant source of revenue for these nations. International Education contributes over $16.4 billion to the Canadian economy annually and supports more than 200,000 jobs. To lure foreign students, most of these nations, boasting strong economies, provide added immigration benefits like part-time work authorization during studies and full-time post-study work permits of one to three-year duration. Further, they offer a permanent residency option to international students upon completion of their education and after having worked there for a few years.
Regrettably, India, despite having excellent educational institutions of international fame, is not doing much to draw on this important source of foreign-exchange revenue and global talent.
Foreign students from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the CIS countries can be encouraged to study in India for economical and high-quality education; we must aspire to become a popular study destination for foreign students, especially from these countries.
With India poised to be among the world’s top-three economies in the next few years, it makes all the more sense for the government to fully tap into this market by encouraging and supporting private-sector participation, and supplementing it with favorable amendments in immigration laws for foreign students.
Additionally, India’s higher education providers need to figure out ways to promote their brand globally, making them household names, and these need to be supported with the enactment of favorable education policies by the government. Besides, our universities and colleges must enthusiastically embrace digital transformation. They must adopt innovative approaches that focus on leveraging technology and fostering research, academia-industry link-ups, plus strong alumni networks.
Only then can we make India a favorite destination for international students, as it used to be in ancient times when students from all over the world used to come to study here, especially at Nalanda and Takshashila University. India was then known as vishwaguru (world teacher); there is no reason why it cannot again become one.
The objective should be to provide a digital support system and encourage international students to come to India for higher education, on the lines of the government’s MAKE IN INDIA initiative; a truly one-of-its-kind project in support of the vision of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’.
With a strong network of more than 1,100 universities and 43,000 colleges, India is the second-largest education hub in the world. The present education system is a blend of theoretical and practical learning that enables education at par with global standards. The coveted World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) Recognition status, recently awarded to India’s National Medical Commission, also makes India an attractive destination for international students due to its globally recognized standards.
International students with moderate finances can consider pursuing their higher education in India. It offers excellent education with good campus infrastructure, faculty, research facilities, and industry exposure, besides affordable on-campus and private housing. India is home to the world’s best technical and management public institutions like the IITs, NITs, and IIMs, in addition to hundreds of top-rated public and government-approved private universities.
Additionally, with India’s ‘University Grants Commission (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023’, foreign universities will now be allowed to set up their campuses in India, decide their admission process, fee structure, etc. Hence, besides domestic students, international budget students, especially from developing countries and even from developed nations, can opt to study in the Indian campuses of the Foreign Higher Educational Institutions and get degrees awarded by the parent institutions, which will make their CVs the most sought-after by employers worldwide.
When America’s top Ivy League universities like MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley, and Britain’s Oxford & Cambridge University set up their campuses in India pursuant to ‘UGC Regulations 2023’, combined with a strong selling pitch by the Indian Government using ‘TEACH IN INDIA’ & ‘STUDY IN INDIA’ campaigns, then students from all over the world can be easily persuaded to come to India to study at these campuses. The unique selling proposition will be that Indian and international students from around the world can obtain the most sought-after degrees from the world’s top universities while studying in their Indian campuses at much lesser cost than studying in their home campuses, as the living expenses in India are among the lowest in the world.
With this, the vision of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ will have three pivotal foundational pillars, namely, MAKE IN INDIA, TEACH IN INDIA, and STUDY IN INDIA, for foreign companies, varsities, and students, respectively.
This might sound too good to be true, but in the history of mankind, all great ideas, at first, appeared to be so until someone took the initiative, persevered, and turned them into a physical reality.
For decades, innumerable companies have been helping Indian students migrate to foreign shores for higher education, thus draining India's intellectual assets and foreign exchange. No private company is creating a reverse market for international students to study in India. No one is vigorously promoting it the way it could be done in today’s technology-driven era; if at all some are into it, including the Ministry of Education’s commendable but not-so-effectual past and present initiatives. In the Education Technology age, when it is much easier to do this business globally, no one is seriously looking at it as a potential game changer—not even the government.
Even the best idea, product, or service needs to be sold, and a need to study in India can be created for international students, especially from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Southeast Asia. For that, we first need to believe in the idea, our own capability, and then the ‘will’ finds a ‘way’. In fact, a need can be created for almost anything under the sun. We just need to figure out how and persevere with it.
Incidentally, Dehradun, the capital city of Uttarakhand, is a leading educational hub with schools like Woodstock, Mussoorie Public School, The Doon School, Welham Boys, The Asian School, and many others, which are already popular study destinations for foreign students, especially from Thailand in Southeast Asia. Even students from Europe, the United Kingdom, and America are already studying at Woodstock School, Mussoorie. If international students can come to study in India’s schools for their secondary education, then they can also be persuaded to come to India for their tertiary education in Indian colleges and universities.
However, the startup business model should not be based on temporary events, like pandemics, where the business lasts till the events last; it should be based on an enduring event—the reclamation of India’s lost title: ‘World Teacher’.
Moreover, roping in celebrities as brand ambassadors, in exchange for equity share, and creating hype can quickly increase the company’s valuation but fails to build a lasting business. A company's valuation can swiftly reach a billion dollars (unicorn status) by venture capitalists and angel investors. However, early investors (including celebrity brand ambassadors) tend to exit with the money of later investors rather than with the profits from actual sales of the company’s products and services, and that's not business. The real measure of a company's success lies in the revenue generated by the sales of its useful products and services, and that takes time. Building a solid and lasting business is not a sprint race; it is a marathon that requires a moderate and steady pace to win the race.
The market size in terms of revenue generated by the overseas education support industry currently stands at roughly $2-3 billion, which is ten percent of the total outward remittance flow. The vast majority of Indian students go for a post-graduate diploma or master’s program, and typically, ten percent of the first-year tuition fee is the consultant commission paid by the foreign institutions. This market size is certainly going to increase exponentially in the near future. Correspondingly, the market size of the education support industry promoting the ‘Study in India’ initiative is going to be colossal, especially if it is aimed at foreign-bound Indian and international students both.
Although the Ministry of Education, Government of India, launched a flagship ‘Study in India’ project in April 2018, despite having fully competent personnel, it is not advisable for the government to rely solely on their own initiative; rather, it would be judicious to support this unexplored industry in its nascent stage by promoting private-sector participation and possibly having a minor stake in startup companies that are keen on laying the foundation of this neoteric Ed-Tech consulting industry in India. It is incumbent upon the government to seriously consider this suggestion, especially when the matter is of such great national and social significance.
To sum up, it’s an idea whose time has come, especially in today's technology-driven digital era, and nothing can stop it. The government must recognize the huge potential in it and nurture it to make India, once again, a vishwaguru (world teacher) of the twenty-first century and beyond.
Copyright ©️ 2024, Dinesh Pundir. All rights reserved.
Last updated: 10.05.2024
By Dinesh Pundir
Click here to read this article in the Times Of India Readers' Blog
If India can make its own fighter jet, its own spacecrafts and even carry others’ satellites into orbits, if India can make a budget Mars craft, moon lander, rover, then it can certainly make world-class cars and high-speed trains that ferry people on land, and it can definitely make its own smartphones and apps. Indian companies, including the higher education-providers, need to figure out ways to market their brands to make them global household names, and this, of course, requires enactment of correct, unbiased, sincere, and nationalistic policies by the government.
Unfortunately, India has not yet tapped into the huge global market of foreign students who can be persuaded to come to India for an affordable and quality higher education. This untapped market comprises all of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the CIS countries. India should aim to become a preferred or most favored destination for international students especially from these countries. This will create a new ‘education export’ industry in India, which would be far bigger than the international tourism industry that India has traditionally relied upon.
If some major investors in India's education system and education mafias can become education messiahs by letting go of their greed, then indeed, India too can be an affordable and quality education hub for both domestic and international students, especially in the medical field. Besides investor greed, other factors, which make medical education in India beyond the reach of a million plus aspirants, are paucity of medical schools and high cost of private medical education because of needless and mandatory huge infrastructure requirements for a medical college; this results in exorbitant fees charged by the private medical schools in India. As a result, for decades, a large number of Indian students have been going abroad for affordable medical education. Yet our biased-system, for the stakes of some interested parties, makes it difficult for them to practice in India.
Hence, corrective measures are required to address these anomalies. This will resolve the issue of acute shortage of quality medical professionals in India.
Presently, there are some proposed changes to these decades-old practice, like NEXT (National Exit Test), which will make it a level playing field for all medical graduates from Indian and foreign universities both. This exit test will ensure that only good doctors get the license to heal, provided NEXT should not have reserved-category concessions in qualifying marks because that will again defeat the purpose of ensuring quality doctors in the workforce for which NEXT is being implemented in the first place.
India's medical education policy has been incoherent. It has not evolved suitably with the changing times, and as a result, there has been a shortage of doctors in the currently second most populated country in the world. Since 2019, and more so, after the recent creation of NMC (National Medical Commission) with its tough regulations regarding foreign medical education, India will continue to face the scarcity of doctors in the coming decades; because, for more than one million aspiring doctors there are presently only around 100,000 medical seats in India. (In 2021, a record 1.5 million candidates appeared for NEET-UG exam). NMC contends that it wants to ensure that only proficient doctors are allowed to practice in India as the medical field is concerned with the safety of human lives. However, merit and competency are still being compromised while creating a dearth of doctors by discouraging affordable foreign medical education.
Oddly, India has always considered Russian medical education not on par with that of US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, while it (India) is a major importer of Russian defense equipment, which too are intended to save Indian lives. Russian technology in space, defense, medicine, and many other areas is better than that of the US since the early 60s. It was the first country in the world to launch an artificial earth satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957, and the first to send a manned spaceflight in 1961, and it is still a world superpower. Incidentally, it was also the first country to develop and register a covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, in August 2020.
Following a befuddled, and of late, a more rigid medical education policy denies a fundamental right to affordable professional education to all citizens.
Therefore, until we have enough quality and affordable medical colleges that can fulfil the huge local medical education demand, curtail doctors’ shortage, as well as offer seats to foreign students, the government needs to be flexible with foreign-trained Indian medical graduates. After all, we cannot kill students’ aspirations to become doctors, and neither can we kill patients by not having enough doctors for them.
Hence, ideally, besides creating more affordable medical colleges in India, NEET and some tough sections of the recently introduced FMG Licentiate Regulations 2021, should not be a prerequisite for medical aspirants seeking admission into WHO and local ‘regulatory authority’ approved medical colleges abroad. Clearing NEXT followed by an internship in India is sensible enough to grant them a license to practice as doctors.
On the other hand, overseas education providers need to be flexible if they want a share of the huge Indian market for foreign education. If they can have different fees structure – it is higher for international students – then they can also design a different curriculum structure for them to fulfil the mandatory requirements of their home country. Therefore, to fill the demand and supply gap in India's medical education, the foreign medical education institutions must seriously consider adapting to the new regulations of NMC. After all, they cannot afford to lose a big market that India is.
However, globally open trade cannot be a one-way traffic; Indian education regulatory norms must be reciprocal for foreign students coming to India for higher education including the medical field. Our education providers and regulatory bodies must also comply with other countries’ education policies and requirements. We must give recognition to their educational institutions if we want them to give recognition to our institutions. Only then, we can make India a favourite destination for international students as it used to be in the ancient times, when students from all over the world used to come to study here, especially at Nalanda and Takshashila University. India was then known as vishwa guru (world teacher); there is no reason why it cannot again become one.
Therefore, in the larger interest of the country, the government should not make it difficult for Indian students to study abroad, especially in the medical field because presently we do not have enough medical colleges to cater to a huge demand for the medical degree. Moreover, the other countries would do the same, they will make it tough for their students to study in India. In such a scenario, it would be hard for India to become a popular education hub for international students. It is noteworthy that, for the past few decades, international students have become an important source of revenue for world’s major economies like US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, China, Singapore, and even smaller CIS countries. Lamentably, India, despite having good colleges and varsities is not doing much to tap into this important source of foreign exchange revenue.
Copyright ©️ 2022, Dinesh Pundir. All rights reserved