Why India needs to attract more international students

Around the corridors of the ministry responsible for education in India, you will often hear statements like: "India itself has huge demand internally and so we don't need international students." It’s not just those in education who say such things – even economists ask: "Foreign student kyu chaiye [Why foreign students]?".

It’s strange to put the case for globalisation in a nation where 70% of the population are under 30, many of whom are already global as they are on Facebook talking to people from around the world, watching videos on YouTube from different countries and visiting and learning about various cultures and markets.

Why aren't we able to promote internationalisation of our education system? There are huge benefits of building a 'Study in India' programme.

As a case in point, let’s look at the United States and the value that immigrants have added. More than 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or a child of immigrants. According to the Partnership for a New American Economy these companies employ more than 10 million people worldwide and generate an annual revenue of US$4.2 trillion.

A manufacturing capital

India is young, energetic and optimistic about the new age of digital disruption. We see a lot of initiatives around, such as the Digital India programme, Make in India and Startup India. It is time for India to understand what will be possible when our campuses can generate international success stories.

Make in India demonstrates the Indian government’s vision of making India the new manufacturing world capital, but it will require input from the higher education sector and the Human Resource Development Ministry. How will a company from Japan, Korea or any other place in the world feel comfortable investing in Indian manufacturing if they don't have any talent from their own country present?

Such companies will want people who are from their own background and culture as a part of their middle and top management team. If we don't create the right ecosystem for people to come and study or work in India, then these companies will take for ever to set up offices in India.

How will they integrate their research and development needs if India’s campuses have a one-dimensional approach to teaching and learning?

Technology solves some of the biggest problems globally. The reason the US is able to truly build technology solutions for a global population is because of its strong immigrant population. It nurtures and learns from them the traits and beliefs of different markets and scales a solution to fit each market.

It innovates and harnesses the intelligence and experience of, for instance, young Indians who travel to the US for their higher education. We not only send our brightest minds to the US but also our beliefs and learning about our country and these are the most important assets for them. And, if they are bright, they are incentivised to stay in the US and start their own companies.

Different perspectives

When will India truly have global products? The Startup India campaign needs our young people to learn and build networks with people from across the world.

If we can have university campuses that are diverse and global, we will be able to train our young students about the different perspectives, lifestyles, behaviours and mental models around the world. To have that knowledge and experience will be the biggest differentiating factor in the 21st century for young Indians.

We are at a historic moment in India and we need to capture this and start working on building frameworks to attract foreign students to come and be a part of our learning community. We need central as well as state government to allow more freedom to its higher education institutions to build an innovative campaign to attract more of these young minds to solve some of the biggest problems facing this country.

Now is the best moment under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who understands the value and benefits of globalisation. Here are the steps that we would recommend national policy-makers should take:

• • Make student visa policies simple, transparent and consistent.
  
• • Create an ecosystem to build cultural sensitivity towards international students in student towns.
  
• • Build policies to encourage post-study work options along with a strong push for an entrepreneurial visa category.
  
• • Embark on an outreach plan to use international students who have studied in India as ambassadors when they return to their own countries.
  
• • Provide a platform to have dialogue around further improvements in building the right ecosystem and awareness for foreign nationals living in India.
  
• • Create a strong scholarship programme that will encourage the best brains to choose India as a study option.

And here are our recommendations for a state policy framework:

• • Encourage twinning programmes between state universities and international universities to build better brand awareness.
  
• • Build state outreach plans so as to encourage mobility and credit transfers between universities.
  
• • Create good quality housing for students.
  
• • Be an enabler and encourage more foreign universities to set up satellite campuses.

For universities it is this enabling environment that will help them prosper. They need to concentrate on the outreach and brand-building exercise to increase diversity. We are in the middle of a 'revolution' from the consumers/students on our campuses. They want to learn on a global campus and, with the right framework, we should be able to achieve a goal of getting 100,000 foreign students to India by 2020.

Pratik Gandhi is co-founder of Edulab in Mumbai, India. This article was first published on LinkedIn Pulse.