Foreign students' arrival is declining: G Viswanathan

Chennai: Arrival of foreign students in India is declining owing to several reasons including adverse publicity given to unfortunate incidents in the country and outdated curriculum in Indian Universities, said G. Viswanathan, Chancellor, VIT.

He was speaking at the national symposium on ‘From potential for excellence to excellence in higher educational institutions’ in the city on Tuesday.

 “We have 780 universities and 40,000 colleges of which 20 or 25 institutions alone are getting foreign students. Around 35,000 students from foreign countries are coming to India to study.

Karnataka state receiving the highest of 13,200 students and Tamil Nadu is next with 4,400 students,” he said. Foreigners hesitate coming to India thinking it is not a safe country with the adverse publicity given to unfortunate incidents, he said.

“Central or state governments have never taken any proactive step promoting our higher education. We can give the same quality of education available in UK or Australia with just one third or one fourth of the cost,” he said.

Also, the syllabus is outdated, he added. He also pointed out that China has three lakh foreign students and has fixed a target of five lakh foreign students by 2020.