Key highlights
- Indian universities are planning to open international branch campuses in Nigeria due to its latest internationalization strategy
- The decline in a number of international students was ascribed to the fact that there are fewer career prospects for international graduates from Indian colleges than there are in European and North American countries, where they are permitted to work for an extended period of time.
- The National Education Policy (NEP), India has therefore increased attempts to internationalize its educational system. The most recent was the January release of draft legislation allowing foreign institutions to establish themselves in the country.
Indian universities are planning to open international branch campuses on the African continent, according to reports.
The announcement comes as the country prepares to launch an internationalization strategy that will target several Asian, African, and Middle Eastern countries.
A number of Asian universities, including the prestigious state-owned Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), are eager to establish campuses on the continent once the government publishes enabling regulations in April.
According to Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, chairman of India’s University Grants Commission (UGC), the commission was encouraging institutions to establish campuses abroad, citing Africa, the Gulf region, and Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam as fertile ground.
The UGC and the institutions are encouraged, among other things, by the large presence of the Indian diaspora population in the countries, as well as the fact that the country’s more than 1,000 universities offer a diverse range of programs, including widely respected IT courses.
What they said
- “There is huge potential for setting up campuses in African countries, Thailand, Vietnam, and a few Gulf countries, due to the opportunities. It is just that we have not had any enabling regulations so far,” according to Kumar.
- “We have in India a huge university ecosystem. There are outstanding universities, both in central government, state government-funded, and private universities. We want to encourage these varsities to set up their campuses abroad,” the chairman added.
- “Some countries are coming forward to provide the infrastructure to our universities to set up their campuses.”
Existing barriers
Many of the nation’s IITs, including those in Madras and Delhi, have been receiving proposals to open campuses in African nations as well as Middle-Eastern and South Asian nations.
According to the chairman, the biggest barrier still exists in the form of a lack of legislation and regulations that would permit institutes to open branches abroad.
He added that a strategy was being developed to guarantee that the IITs can create international campuses without contravening the law that established them as part of the Council of the Indian Institute of Technology.
According to data source Statista, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh are the three Asian nations with the most foreign students studying in India, along with the UAE, Bhutan, Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Yemen. The US is the only nation outside the developing world on the top 10 list,
The motive behind this move
The All India Survey on Higher Education reported that the number of international students enrolling in Indian higher education institutions decreased by 2.6% over the previous two years, from 49,348 in 2019–20 to 48,035 in 2020–21.
The AIU observed that as a result of this, other countries are missing out on learning about India’s “rich tradition and culture” and its “modern economy and society” due to the low numbers of overseas students.
According to the Organization of African Students in India, 15,000 students were African in 2021, with 4300 of them coming from the top three African nations on the list.
The decline was ascribed to the fact that there are fewer career prospects for international graduates from Indian colleges than there are in European and North American countries, where they are permitted to work for an extended period of time.
So since the 2020 start of the National Education Policy (NEP), India has increased attempts to internationalize its educational system. The most recent was the January release of draft legislation allowing foreign institutions to establish themselves in the country.
What this means for Nigerians
So far, there were approximately 30,000 Nigerian students studying in India last year. In addition, according to a report by the Association of Indian Universities, Nigeria was the fifth largest source of international students in the country’s academic institutions.
These figures show that a significant number of Nigerian students are interested in receiving education from Indian higher institutions due to the country’s expertise in technical, engineering, and science education. In addition, the tuition fees are typically less expensive than those offered in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.
This move to establish Indian university branches in Nigeria will further give more Nigerians the opportunity to study technical degrees in well-established Indian universities without breaking the bank.
