NEW DELHI: On an average, over 11 lakh Indian students go abroad annually to higher education. However only a paltry figure of around 49,000 international students arrive in India to study. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 gave a massive push to address this imbalance, and the efforts have started bearing fruit.
With Australia openly announcing a cap on international students and the UK imposing immigration restrictions on foreign students, the flexibility given by NEP to foreign universities to set up shop in India has come as a boon for universities abroad as well as Indian students who want to pursue degrees in international institutions, say top officials of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU). The International Division of the AIU is in the forefront to promote foreign education in India.
To facilitate this, the AIU had created a dedicated platform two years ago, the Indian Network for Internationalisation of Higher Education (INIHE). It has 1,069 universities in India and 19 associations of foreign universities under its fold.
Kuldeep Dagar, Joint Secretary, Evaluation and International Division, AIU, told this newspaper, “In alignment with the NEP 2020, the UGC regulations of November 7, 2023, has streamlined the process for foreign educational institutes.” The Setting up and Opening of Foreign Higher Education Institutes in India 2023 has created the much needed flexibility to set up campuses in India, offer dual degrees or exchange programmes, he added.
“Reputed educational institutions in Australia and the UK, in particular, are expressing a massive interest in opening up campuses in India. With the cap on international students officially announced for this year in Australia and unofficially taking place in the UK, they are keen on taking advantage of this move. The AIU has already led delegations comprising top university representatives to Spain, UK, Ireland and Taiwan in the last two years,” he said.
Pankaj Mittal, Secretary General, AIU, said, “Atleast ten MoUs have already been signed between Indian and foreign universities and more are set to follow.”
The University of Southampton became the first foreign university to launch its campus in the country under the new NEP policy in Gurugram on July 16. In the pipeline are five universities set to open shop in Mumbai’s Educity between 2026 and 2027 – the Instituto Europeo Di Design (Italy), the Illinois Institute of Technology (USA), University of York (UK), (Australia) and University of Western Australia.