Higher Education Abroad: Current Scenario and Future Trends
Creators: name: Rajshree
name: GG Dwivedi
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Higher Education, National Education Policy 2020, Pandemic, Online education

description: This study aims to review the current scenario of Indian students pursuing higher education abroad and determine how the choices of students who want to study overseas may get influenced by the National Education Policy 2020, and the global outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. As per UNESCO Institute of Statistics, more than 3,00,000 Indian students are pursuing tertiary education overseas as of 2017, which has made an average annual growth rate of 22% from 2000 to 2016. Indian students choose to study abroad due to specific pull factors such as greater exposure, better quality and standard of higher educational institutions and enhanced research opportunities, funds and employment opportunities. The United States of America, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and Germany remains to be the most preferred countries as of 2017 and STEM as the most chosen area of study followed by engineering, business administration and management, and life, medical and social sciences. The National Education Policy, 2020, seeks to transform the higher educational institutions in India and make them globally competitive through the implementation of plans like an increased investment of overall public expenditure on the education sector six per cent of the GDP, branch campuses of foreign universities, joint and dual degree programmes, open and distance learning, liberal education programmes, National Research Foundation with separate funding in research, Institutes of Eminence and greater use of technology. The global pandemic of COVID-19 has destructed the economies of the world, and it has also led to a significant loss for the students planning to pursue higher education abroad. Visa expiry, massive education loans, economic recession, a lower return of investment, withdrawn job offers, travel restrictions are some of such problems. It has intensified the role of technology and consequentially, online education which has, in turn, made the teaching-learning process more manageable. From online lectures, discussions to interactive academic sessions through platforms like Zoom, Google meet, Skype, Google classroom, websites like Coursera, edX, Swayam, and other MOOC (Massive open online courses) platforms have allowed students to gain knowledge, even amidst the period of lockdown. With dual-degree and joint degree programmes, branch campuses of foreign universities in the special education zones, enhanced research funding along with upcoming challenges of travel restrictions and economic recession due to the pandemic, decisions of students planning to pursue higher education abroad may get affected. Primary data was collected through the method of an online survey based on snowball sampling of over thirty students to fulfil the objective of the research. Based on the findings, it is visualized that the future trend of higher education in India as an effect of COVID-19 and NEP, 2020 will be based on the three pillars of Online Education, established Branch Campuses of foreign universities and Open and distance learning. The major driving factors in establishing such a trend include the role of technology, the growing travel restrictions, economic recession, return of investment, emphasis on ‘local’ and family influence.