India poised to open the education system that built stalwarts like Sunder Pichai and Indira
Intro: By 2025 the global demand for international education will grow to 7.2 million students; a quantum leap from 1.2 million students in 2000. Indian education system is by far the largest higher education system in the world with 70 million students enrolled; having created additional capacity for 40 million students in less than two decades with more than 36,000 functional institutes. Thus, India has all the many reasons to celebrate, deliberate and develop its higher education system. The demand for quality education will grow by quantum leaps, and not all of this will be met up by the west. The global education landscape is witnessing a great paradigm shift, a shift that will gradually pull out the student outreach from the West to the East; from developed to the developing world; from prospects towards new possibilities. The need of the hour is to capitalize on India’s key strengths of scale and diversity; work on infrastructure and research capabilities to bridge the weaknesses, and hence develop world class global learning ecosystem. Further, with Mumbai and Delhi making it to list of top 100 Best Student Cities 2017 for students in the world released by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the six composite factors working in favour of India are affordability, desirability, student mix, rankings, employer activity and student perception. Beyond this the key success factor for India to march forward and clinch its spot in the global education arena is Policy, Diplomacy and Processes!
Pacing up with the new policy initiatives Combining budgetary initiatives taken up in 2016 and 2017, the higher education system is getting its much needed investments for research & development, building infrastructure and remodeling for internationalization. The World Class University initiative seeks to make India’s 20 higher educational institutions (10 public and 10 private) rank amongst the top 100 universities globally. On the other hand, HEFA aims to offer affordable loans for infrastructure and research & development requirement of educational institutes. Also, digitization of classrooms, bringing distinguished international faculties (similar to universities), and increased funds for Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship are on their way. Further reforms rolling out in 2017 include emphasis on innovation fund for secondary education. Reforms underway in UGC to identify institutes based on ranking and give them more autonomy. Proposal to leverage information technology with launch of Swayam platform for virtual learning; and building 100 Indian international skill centres to be established with courses in foreign languages, are all paving way forward for internationalization and making India ready for the world. Leveraging Diplomatic stance If there is any best time to leverage from the nation’s diplomatic association, and scale up our education and training services out each it is now. On completion of the first 100 days of Modi government the External Affairs Ministry published a booklet called “Fast Track Diplomacy” show-casing the achievement made in the foreign policy arena. The Modi Government has coined a multiple foreign polices to keep up with its diplomatic stance: Act East Policy, Neighborhood First Policy, Indian Ocean Outreach, Project Mausam, Fast Track Diplomacy, and Para Diplomacy to name a few. Most of these policies focus on improving bilateral and cultural ties with our neighbouring countries. All India needs to do is work into these three points – streamline its already in place scholarship plans for foreign students to begin with and make the process steadfast and effective; secondly train existing Admission Officers, Deans, VCs, etc to be more efficient in dealing with foreign students; and lastly invest in educational infrastructure. India has the advantage of location, language; cultural compliance, democratic freedom, and lower cost index over the West and over China and will soon out run the dragon. Creating processes that work both ways India has multiple admissions and immigration aggregators working with a high success ratio. Today, nearly 234,000 India students enrolled for courses in colleges and universalities abroad Vs only 39,000 degree seeking students coming to India. There is need for admission aggregators to build space for Indian institutes as well, and work along the impeding task of building focus on inbound international student mobility as well. Amidst this Admisiondesk.org comes as a pioneering initiative, leading the ‘Study in India’ campaign strongly forward. It works as a proactive platform that is helping foreign students connect with colleges and choose courses online. It has also eased the application process by taking
it completely online providing the institutes and students to assess their requirements in a more organized manner. Further with India trained Engineers and Doctors already ruling the west, there is no doubt upon our education system, but there is still need to tweak the infrastructure and processes that can better the results and further up India’s chances of being a revered international education destination. It is here that Admisiondesk.org is chipping in and making all the difference. India enjoys being a cultural potpourri- that can be packaged as a great learning concept. Place were science merges with history, art merges with cultural and political stance. About The Author: Pratik Gandhi is the Founder of Edulab Educational Exchange Pvt. Ltd. He has been in the business of education for over a decade now. He began his journey, as a student, graduated to being a facilitator, and now has carved a niche for himself as a service creator. He comes forth as visionary in the field of student mobility in India, a person who vouched for the concept of ‘Study in India’ campaign even before its official inception. Pratik, Co-founded his first company Edutrotters Pvt. Ltd in 2006, while he was still a student at Mumbai University, studying international Finance and set-up base to mobilize over 12000 students from India in a short span of three years for various experiential learning initiatives. Post completion of his MBA in Entrepreneurship from Babson College (USA); he made a more focused comeback and laid the foundation for Edulab, and set up base in Mumbai. Pratik set up Admissiondesk.org in 2016, which is a first of its kind interactive platform based in India that helps foreign students to apply/seek admission in Indian institutes. Amidst the scheme of things the aim of this portal is to build a unified system that seeks to standardize online application process across institutes, and above all mobilize international students towards India. About Edulab: Edulab Educational Exchange Pvt. Ltd. was founded in 2010, is a partnership subsidiary of “Education First”, and represents them in India. “Education First” has presence in more than 100 countries and employs more than 43000 individuals, it has more than 500 campuses around the world and has programs for students from 13-30 Years of age. The company is a member of the WYSE Travel Confederation an association accredited by UNESCO, and an affiliate member of UNWTO dedicated to promoting and developing opportunities for the youth, student and education travel industry. It holds partnership associations with the Wallonnia BRIC internship program since 2013; was the Indian partner for the US Cultural Immersion Institute (a US State Funded Program); conducted the China exchange program in association with CPAFFC; and is also partner for the “SLICE” project which is funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus + Scheme (2017-2020).
Edulab has successfully collaborated with over 28 countries, partnering with 70 Universities, and engaging over 25,000+ students annually through its wide bouquet of services. Admissiondesk.org was launched in 2016- a portal designed to specifically cater to international students wanting to “Study in India�. The company aims bring more holistic International Student Mobility programs, which is required to inculcate internationalisation in Indian Institutes.