Andhra Pradesh issues new guidelines to study abroad

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh government has announced new guidelines to help students pursue foreign education, with more stress on merit and has been made applicable also to the poor students from forward castes.

The state government on Monday issued an order on Videshi Vidya Deevena. Students whose parents’ annual income is below Rs 8 lakh are eligible to avail the Videshi Vidya Deevena scheme. Students must be aged below 35.

Accordingly, the state will bear the study expenditure of students who secured seats in the first 200 universities in QS World University Rankings. This means those who secured seats in the first 100 universities will get total fee reimbursement.

Those who secured seats in universities of rankings between 100 and 200 would get fee reimbursement up to Rs 50 lakh.

The fee reimbursement amount will be released into the bank accounts of the students in four instalments. The first instalment will be released to the students who secured either landing permit or I-94 card while the second instalment will be released after the results of the first semester or term are out.

The third instalment will be released after the second semester results are out. The fourth instalment will be released after the results of either the fourth or the final semester are out.

Students pursuing PhD and MBBS courses would get fee reimbursement either annually or semester-wise until they complete their course.

All the students who secure seats in the top 200 universities as per QS World University Rankings would get fee reimbursement under the scheme.

However, the scheme is applicable to the native students of AP and only one student from a family will get the benefit.

The state government will issue notification to identify eligible students to pursue foreign education every year between September and December, and again between January and May. A committee headed by the AP chief secretary will select the eligible students.

A comparison of foreign education scheme implemented by the previous TD government and the the present YSR Congress government showed that the last government selected 3,326 students from 2016-17 but failed to clear the dues of Rs 318 crore.

The TD government did not allow poor students from upper castes to avail it and imposed a ceiling on annual income up to Rs 6 lakh. This has now been raised to Rs 8 lakh.

The TD government scheme covered universities in only some nations in the world and offered Rs 15 lakh each to SCs, STs and minorities, Rs 10 lakh each to BCs and Kapus. It had released the amount to benefit 300 students from SC, 100 from ST, 400 from Kapu, 1,000 from BC communities and 500 from minorities. Several lapses in implementation of the TD scheme were also noticed by the vigilance and enforcement authorities.

Among these lapses were: no income ceiling was followed in selection of beneficiary students while some students changed the university and the nation to pursue foreign education without informing the government while some discontinued their foreign education after getting the fee reimbursement.

Also, then, the eligibility norm of only one student from a family was violated, it has been pointed out.