India’s National Education Policy (2020) better known as New Education Policy (NEP), has made internationalisation a pivot for much-needed reforms of the country’s higher education institutes. This new paradigm aims to raise the standards of Indian university and college education to global norms in key qualitative parameters – from a complete overhaul of syllabi to cosmopolitan campuses with foreign students, foreign faculty, researchers, and joint and/or dual degrees conferred by both Indian universities and colleges with their foreign counterparts.
All this is being done with urgency. India is in a population bulge, and education is both a necessity for a growing nation and an aspiration for millions who will be the first generation in their families to get a college degree. India has 54,000 colleges and institutions which cater to 38.5 million college-level students. The colleges are of mixed quality and aren’t enough. Approximately 7.5 lakh Indian students therefore study abroad annually, spending hard-earned foreign exchange. Sensing a market need, there has been a blossoming of private universities with world class infrastructure at home. Some are able to attract international faculty, but the big gap is in attracting foreign students, which will truly internationalise the Indian classroom.
The gap remains because the NEP has not closed the loop on employment for foreign students. This means foreign students can study in Indian universities but there is no provision for them to gain work experience in India after completing their degrees – which many foreign students seek, given India’s vibrant corporate and start-up sector. Correcting this requires an amendment to India’s student or ‘S’ Visa that will permit paid work during and after completion of a degree.
An amendment is both good and necessary all around – for Indian companies, the Indian government, and Indian universities. Indian companies are international and aspire to be multinationals. Most of the major Indian players overseas are tech and services companies, and their key resource is talent. They need foreign employees with experience in India, to better understand the country’s and company’s culture and etiquette, and learn how to navigate Indian regulations and markets. Through on-campus recruitment of foreign talent on Indian campuses and hiring alumni from Indian colleges and universities who return to their home countries, Indian companies can develop an ecosystem of overseas talent that is culturally acclimated to working in India. They will be the ‘cultural bridge’ between their country and India, and act as “shock absorbers” to any broader hiccups in bilateral relations. Indian alumni of U.S. universities have been critical in bringing Silicon Valley and Bangalore together, and in helping the U.S. administration understand India’s view points on subjects as varied as science and terrorism. The big three U.S. tech companies – Google, Meta, and Microsoft – are all headed by Indian alumni of U.S. universities, to the great benefit of both nations. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai who studied in India kept bilateral relations warm through the most difficult times and understood India’s compulsions.
An expanded provision of student work visas will amplify these advantages. It must include the 4,000 scholarships for foreigners who come to India annually under the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Ministry of External Affairs, and Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) scholarships for students and professionals from developing and less developed countries. African students who study at the Indian Institute of Mining, Dhanbad, or the many agriculture colleges, will surely benefit from field experience in India before returning home.
For the new private universities seeking global academic bandwidth and networks, attracting foreign students into their classrooms is an extension of the overall India value proposition: a quality education at a fraction of global costs.
The scope is enormous. India has just 49,000 foreign students and the Ministry of Education’s goal was to reach 2,00,000 students in 2023-24. This has not fructified. The Study in India (2018) digital platform did witness a 146% increase in applications for 2021-22 but it is not known yet whether this has translated into a rise in actual enrolments.
For India’s near future, there are two other compelling reasons for implementing a student work visa regime.
First is addressing a demographic issue. There is a worry that foreign students will take over the much-needed jobs of Indian students. This is not the case. In fact, India’s population growth has dipped below the replacement rate of 2.1%, and the country will begin aging soon, China-style, according to the United Nations Population Fund. The number of elderly will double from 149 million in 2022 to 347 million in 2050, eventually overtaking the youth in the country. This has serious ramifications. Growth cannot be sustained with a dwindling working population – as is being witnessed by Japan, Germany, and China. The U.S., UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, have offset this by offering post-study student work visas like the Curricular Practical Training (CPT) and CPT-OPT for STEM students in the U.S., and the opportunity to transition to a PR (permanent resident) in the case of Canada or an H1B visa in the U.S. European nations have chosen the route of migration to make up for decreasing workers – and are facing a negative impact on internal culture and demographics.
India can learn from the experience of other countries. It can offer work status, which may not extend to a resident visa.
Second, India is waking up to the financial potential of its higher education ecosystem. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already designated higher education as one of the 12 champion export sectors being promoted overseas by the Services Export Promotion Council, Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Elite Indian central colleges like the IIMs and IITs have already expanded abroad, most recently in Zanzibar, Tanzania, where IIT Chennai has begun full degree classes this year. Private universities like Manipal have long had foreign campuses in the Caribbean and Malaysia, and now newer ones like Sharda and Amity have established campuses in Uzbekistan.
With the world in geopolitical turmoil and the dream of a western education and high quality of life no longer a certitude, it’s time a concerted effort be made by the government to amend India’s student visa regime. It starts with a notification by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) permitting paid employment under the “S” category visas. The MHA is the key ministry as all foreigners in the country are registered and monitored by its Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRRO). Other ministries must work in parallel. The Ministry of Finance will need to determine the applicability of India’s tax laws and double taxation treaties on income earned by foreign students. The Ministry of Education through the University Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education will need to pass guidelines on campus recruitment of foreigners and the role of the international students’ department in coordinating with MHA, employers, and the students. Finally, Indian multinational companies which will be the greatest beneficiaries other than Indian universities and foreign students themselves, must advocate for a change in the student visa directly and through business chambers.
Sifra Lentin is Fellow, Bombay History, Gateway House
This article was first published by The Indian Express.
The article draws on the author’s paper, Internationalising Indian Education: Work Visas for Foreign Students. You can download the PDF version of this paper here.