Centre to establish call centre, app to attract foreign students

New Delhi: Come 2019 and foreign students aiming to pursue different courses in higher education in India under the Study in India programme would get all the needed information just a click of button as Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) is all set launch a dedicated call centre and mobile application in a next few months.

Notably, the Study in India programme was launched to improve the soft power of India with focus on the neighbouring countries and use it as a tool in diplomacy besides doubling India's market share of global education exports from less than 1 per cent to 2 per cent.

While talking to Millennium Post, EdCIL chairman & managing director Diptiman Das said that the work is in progress to establish a call centre for students coming to India under Study in India initiative. "The call centre would be based in the country and the mandate of the call centre would be to provide information related to the availability of courses, different disciplines offered by universities, colleges, etc."

While talking about the proposed mobile application, Das said, "The application is being developed to make provide all information related to Study in India on the go. Students can register themselves for any discipline in any institution of their choice through a mobile application."

In a bid to make India a hub of higher education, the HRD Ministry is also taking several other measures to attract students from different countries.

As per 2016-17 figures, there are over 47,000 students of foreign countries study in India but the government has set an ambitious target to take this number to 2 lakhs by 2023. Under the scheme, the government has selected some focused countries and working in the direction to attract students from those focused nations.

The government would spend about Rs 150 crore in the next two years to 'attract' students from the countries of Africa, South East Asia, SAARC, etc to study in India.