The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has made internationalisation a linchpin of reforms in the country’s higher education sector. This new paradigm aims to raise the standards of Indian higher education across key parameters – curriculum revision, campuses with foreign students, foreign faculty, researchers, and joint and/or dual degrees awarded by Indian universities and colleges with their foreign counterparts.
India has 54,000 colleges and institutions serving 38.5 million students at the higher education level. Their quality is uneven and insufficient. About 7.5 lakh Indian students study abroad every year. Market demand has led to the flourishing of private universities. Some have been able to attract international faculty, but the big gap is in attracting foreign students.
Foreign students can study in Indian universities, but there is no provision for them to gain work experience in India after graduation – which many foreign students seek, given India’s vibrant corporate and start-up sector. Correcting this will require an amendment to the Indian student or ‘S’ visa.
Many Indian companies are international and aspire to be multinationals. Most of India’s major overseas players are technology and services companies, and their key resource is talent. They need foreign employees with experience in India to better understand the country’s and company’s culture and etiquette, and to learn how to navigate Indian regulations and markets. By recruiting foreign talent on Indian campuses and hiring alumni of Indian institutions returning to their home countries, Indian companies can develop an ecosystem of expatriate talent accustomed to working in India. They will be the “cultural bridge” between their country and India. Indian alumni of US universities have been instrumental in bringing Silicon Valley and Bengaluru together, and in helping the US administration understand India’s views on various issues. The three largest US technology companies – Google, Meta and Microsoft – are all headed by Indian alumni of US universities. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who studied in India, has kept the bilateral relationship warm through difficult times.
An expanded supply of student work visas will reinforce these benefits. This must include the 4,000 foreign scholarships that come to India each year under the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Ministry of External Affairs, and the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation scholarships for students and professionals from developing and less developed countries. African students studying at the Indian Institute of Mining, Dhanbad, or at agricultural colleges benefit from practical experience in India. There are 49,000 foreign students in India. The Ministry of Education has set a target of 2,00,000 students by 2023-24. This is unlikely to be achieved.
There is a fear that foreign students will take over the jobs of Indian students. This is not the case. India’s population growth has fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1 per cent, and the country will soon begin to age like China, according to the UN Population Fund. The number of older people will double from 149 million in 2022 to 347 million in 2050, eventually overtaking the young.
This has serious implications. Growth cannot be sustained with a shrinking working population, as is the case in Japan, Germany and China. The US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have compensated by offering post-study work visas to students. European countries, on the other hand, have chosen the path of migration to make up for the labour deficit, and this is having an impact on their policies. India can learn from this experience. It can offer a work status that may not extend to a resident visa.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has identified higher education as one of the champion export sectors to be promoted overseas. Elite Indian institutions such as the IIMs and IITs have already expanded abroad, most recently to Zanzibar, Tanzania, where IIT Chennai has started full-time undergraduate courses. Private universities like Manipal have long had overseas campuses in the Caribbean and Malaysia, and now newer ones like Sharda and Amity have set up campuses in Uzbekistan.
With the world in geopolitical turmoil and the dream of a Western education no longer a certainty, it’s time for a concerted effort to change India’s student visa regime. It starts with a notification from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) allowing paid employment under the S category visa. The Ministry of Finance will have to determine the applicability of India’s tax laws and double taxation treaties to income earned by foreign students. The Ministry of Education, through the UGC and the All India Council for Technical Education, will need to issue guidelines on campus recruitment of foreigners and the role of the International Students’ Department in coordinating with the MHA, employers and students. Finally, Indian multinationals need to lobby directly and through chambers of commerce for a change in the student visa regime.
