Government of India announces "Study in India" programme

The objective is to improve the soft power of India with focus on the neighbouring countries.

Ministry of Human Resource Development has approved ‘Study in India’ programme with, inter-alia, the following objectives improve the soft power of India with focus on the neighbouring countries and use it as a tool in diplomacy.

• To boost the number of inbound International students in India,
• To double India’s market share of global education exports from less than 1 percent to 2 percent,
• Increase in the contribution of the international student in the form of direct spends, indirect spends, spillover effects,
• Improvement in overall quality of higher education,
• Increase in the global ranking of India as the educational destination,
• To reduce the export – Import imbalance in the number of International students, and
• The growth of India’s global market share of International students.

The proposed fee waivers to meritorious foreign students in this policy will be decided by the Institute concerned based on the following criteria:

• 100 percent waiver of tuition fees only for the top 25 percent students,
• 50 percent waiver of tuition fees only for the next 25 percent students,
• 25 percent waiver of tuition fees only for the next 25 percent students, and
• No waiver of tuition fee for remaining 25 percent of students.

The expenditure on the fee waiver will have to be borne by the Institute concerned, based on cross-subsidization or through its existing funding. No additional cash flow from Government is proposed for the same.

The ‘Study in India’ programme’s primary objective is to target foreign students by branding India as an attractive education destination. As per the existing Government framework, provision of 10-15 percent supernumerary seats for foreign students is there. ‘Study in India’ programme would target the foreign students to be admitted as per this provision, which would not have any adverse impact on the number of seats/ admission of Indian students.

The Government has approved an expenditure of INR 150 crores for the ‘Study in India’ programme for two years 2018-19 and 2019-20 which will be primarily for brand promotion activities.

As the inflow of foreign students depends on various factors viz. individual will and choice, Visa issues etc., estimation about the future inflow of foreign students is not possible.

(This is a reproduce press release from the government of India as it is. Devdiscourse bears no responsibility towards grammatical or factual errors that may have been presented in the report.)