NEW DELHI: The US continues to remain the most favoured destination for Indian students seeking higher education, even as the number of students heading to the UK has witnessed a slump owing to the tighter visa regime. UK’s loss has been the gain for other countries like Australia and Canada that has registered an increase in the number of the Indian students.
According to the UNESCO 2017 ranking, the number of Indian students going to the UK has registered a drop of 4 per cent from 2015 to 2016. This has pushed UK from the second position to third, whereas Australia has replaced it. The next two countries in the list are Canada and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The US still has the largest chunk of Indian students with its share standing at a whopping 48 per cent in 2016. However, things might change with hate crimes and racism is expected to increase in the US after President Donald Trump rallied against immigration. Kansas shooting victim’s grieving father, KK Shastri has already advised other parents against sending their children to the US for education or job.
The UNESCO report released this month says that 11 per cent of the Indian students who went abroad have gone to Australia, where as 8 per cent went to the UK.
The number of students going to Canada in 2016 was six per cent and to the United Arab Emirates it was 5 per cent.
The Ministry of External Affair (MEA) has time and again raised the issue with the UK government while brandishing the figure that the number of Indian students enrolling in UK universities has gone down by almost 50 per cent; from around 40,000 to 20,000 now.
Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu said, “The Australia-India education relationship is strong and vibrant. India is our second largest source of overseas students.”