Bengaluru: With the recent trend of Indian students opting to pursue higher education at European countries on the rise, experts say that the lack of a curriculum based on practical learning and absence of inter-disciplinary courses at the both the undergraduate and postgraduate in Indian varsities are among the major reason behind the drift.
According to Wendy Dsouza, global education advisor, Indian students have always aspired to acquire a hands-on experience while pursuing education. “Even while some autonomous institutes in India have identified this and started to design courses foreseeing such a scope, the new generation Indian students identifying the necessity to enhance their career interests along with studies have contributed to many travelling overseas to pursue higher education,” she said. For instance, Ireland spending 783 million pounds towards research, she adds, is something that should be carried out by the Indian system as well.
Dr Srinivasan Raghavendran, renowned global academic believes that full time availability of experts linked to the live industry provides students at European varsities an upper hand over those in Indian institutions. He said the overseas system of tertiary education (higher studies including postgraduate courses and advanced research) itself is in general designed for the students to cap maximum possibility to enhance their skills.
“The intellectual and creative freedom, accessibility to latest technology and importance given to improving skills is what makes foreign education more aspired for than their Indian counterparts,” said Dr Raghavendran, the Programme Director of the post-graduate programme in International Finance at National University of Ireland, Galway. Also a visiting faculty of Indian Institution of Science, Dr Raghavendran added that that the inter-disciplinarity of courses offered outside India and the opportunity for advanced and dedicated research available there adds to the value to getting graduated from abroad. “The ability to adhere to the demands of the industry to have job-ready graduates is something that can be seen game-changing, different from the majority of Indian students and instructors who are seen sitting in their own silos,” he said.
Even while the US continues to be the favourite education hub for Indian students, Ms Dsouza adds that the recent changes in the governmental policy there has contributed to more students picking European countries and shares her belief that the charts would turn upside down in near future. “The stringent laws and policies in publishing student visas and the anti-immigrant policies in the US together along with UK falling out from the European Union has made countries like Ireland, France and Germany welcoming more Indians at present,” she said.
While the prominence of English in Ireland keeps the students away from tensions of picking up a new language, varsities from France claim that the Indo-French cultural promotion and tie up at the global level add to Indian students getting more scholarship opportunities.
German colleges attract students from the subcontinent offering an affordable scale of tuition fees while the quality of life provided is highlighted by their Swiss counterparts. Institutions from Netherlands are at present popularising guaranteed employability to students pursuing higher education there as the number of overseas students is lesser when compared to others in the continent.
