CHENNAI: In a bid to prevent brain drain, the Union Education Ministry has decided to allocate additional funds to the Higher Education Funding Agency (HEFA) so that students take a break, fly abroad to take up research projects for a year and come back to continue their course.
According to a 2016 report by US’s top research grants body, National Science Foundation, India continues to top the list of scientists and engineers who have left for abroad on the look out for better prospects. Nearly 9.5 lakh Indians had left for America in 10 years from 2003.
Compounding this scenario, of late, people here have started to look at other options available in European and Australian cities. This has forced the Government of India to stem this outflow.
In a multi-pronged approach, the Centre’s new initiative, HEFA, seeks to fund research projects and create new opportunities for people locally.
Recognising the major pull factor to move abroad was top notch infrastructure and funding, the Centre in the present budget has allocated additional funds to this agency to create similar environment locally.
The Centre also believes that research scholars and workforce crave the chance to visit a foreign nation at least once for exposure.
“Supporting this, the HEFA will fund select students which will enable them to carry out research activities for a maximum period of one year abroad,” highly-placed sources in the Ministry of Human Resources Development said.
Sources said that the government will not only financially support the researchers during their stay abroad but also provide them incentives and stipends after return.
Funds for these scholarships will be made available from Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) aimed at improving the quality of higher education in India. Sources said that the program which was earlier available only in a few premier institutes will soon be available across top State-funded and private varsities.
Welcoming this move, S Sanjana, a Chennai-based college student said, “This will provide us the much-sought after exposure and send a clear message that India is self-sufficient”.
It is not only for higher education. The budget has also setup a corpus fund to promote school students to take up innovative projects which finds solutions for local problems.