Fee waivers bid to draw top students from Asia, Africa

Author :Shuriah Niazi21 April 2018 Issue No:0

The government has begun a drive to attract more foreign students to India’s leading higher education institutions, allocating 15,000 places a year at the top 160 universities and colleges for at least two years and introducing a new system of fee waivers to attract top talent from Asian and African countries.

Currently around 8,000 foreign students are admitted each year, although not just at the top 160 institutions. The 15,000 places will be reserved for international students – and will not go to local students if they are not filled up – and are supported by a generous fee waiver scheme.

The aim is to make India a preferred destination, based on promoting the country as a “hub of affordable education for foreign students”, in the words of India’s Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar.

Higher education access rising but challenges lie ahead

Higher education access rising but challenges lie ahead

Shuriah Niazi13 January 2018 Issue No:488

The proportion of young people in higher education in India has risen to 25.2%, up from under 20% in 2010-11, with the country setting an ambitious goal of attaining a gross enrolment ratio, or GER, of 30% by 2020. 

There was a marginal increase of 0.7% in higher education participation in the past year, up from a GER of 24.5% in 2015-16, according to the latest All India Survey on Higher Education, or AISHE, for the year 2016-17 released by the government on 5 January.

The GER is the ratio of enrolment in higher education compared to the population of the eligible age group (18-23 years).

Total enrolment in 2016-17 is 35.7 million compared to 32.3 million in 2014-15 – an increase of 3.4 million students, making India’s higher education system among the largest in the world.

Uniform NEET questions in regional papers from 2018, says Javadekar

Dated : 25th July 2017

Union human resource development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday made big-ticket announcements in Kolkata+ that will affect the fortunes of lakhs of students appearing in joint entrance examinations in medicine and engineering countrywide.

Allaying fears of thousands of students appearing for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) — the all-India examination for entrance to medical colleges — in regional languages, Javadekar said the vernacular question papers of the examination will be a mere translation of the question paper in English.

This year, the CBSE had set different sets of questions for students appearing for the examination in different languages, with students complaining that the vernacular papers, including the one in Bengali+ , were much tougher than the English and Hindi papers.

HRD ministry invites VCs for national seminar on yoga

Ahead of the International Yoga Day celebrations, the human resource development ministry is holding a national level seminar on yoga on June 18, where vice-chancellors of all central universities would be present.

According to sources, HRD minister Smriti Irani would also be present in the seminar where apart from senior officials of her ministry, VCs, UGC top brass and yoga experts would be present.