A committee has been established by the Government of India to suggest ways to ensure more students stay and study in India. The committee, to be headed by the University Grants Commission, or UGC, chairman will address the needs of students aspiring to go abroad by providing them with appropriate opportunities of education in the country and supporting the students returning from abroad to complete their programmes.
The Union Minister of Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank' while holding a session regarding the formation of the committee, said: “These issues require a thorough understanding of their present and future educational requirements and career plans which need to be addressed appropriately with timely interventions. Each of the above situations present different sets of prospects and challenges.”
The meeting was attended by senior officials and heads of autonomous and technical organisations of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, or MHRD. Minister of State, HRD Sanjay Dhotre; Secretary, Higher Education, Amit Khare; Chairman, UGC, DP Singh; Chairman, AICTE, Anil Sahasrabudhe; Joint Secretary (ICC), Neeta Prasad and Secretary General, AIU, Pankaj Mittal also participated in the meeting.
Mr Pokhriyal, in the meeting, also said that during the year 2019 around 7.5 lakh students went abroad to pursue their studies and because of this valuable foreign exchange moved out of India as well as many bright students moved abroad.
The Minister further added: “We should make all efforts to help bright students to pursue their education in India. Also, as per this government's manifesto we have to increase seat capacity by 50% in all premier institutions by year 2024 and also Institutes of Eminence should be increased to 50 by 2024.”
While the Secretary, Higher Education Amit Khare said that the root causes for this brain drain are many and we should take every step to address the issues and also attract the international students to India under our “Study in India” programme.
Chairman, UGC DP Singh added that creating more twinning programs, dual degrees and ensure that proper research facilities should be created for students who want to return back to India.
Chairman, AICTE, Anil Sahasrabudhe said that AICTE will come out with a white paper soon regarding measures to be taken after studying the entire scenario.
Committee Decisions On “Stay In India Study In India” Meeting
The UGC chairman who will head the committee will prepare guidelines and measures to ensure that more and more students stay here for study in India. The chairman of the committee will also come out with a mechanism for increasing intake in “well performing universities”. The mechanisms including the start of multi-disciplinary and innovative programmes, twinning and joint degree programmes, cross country designing of centres, facilitating joint degree ventures and lateral entry to Indian higher educational institutions.
The Chairman of AICTE will oversee the issues related to technical institutions and NTA and CBSE chairpersons may also be called for inputs, added the statement issued in this regard.
The members of the meeting have decided to constitute separate sub-committees consisting of Directors of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), CoA and Vice Chancellors of Central Universities who will assist the Chairpersons of UGC and AICTE.
The Joint Secretary (International Cooperation) will coordinate from the MHRD side.
The committee will submit its report in a fortnight's time.
