There are thousands of Indian students studying abroad in various universities, Colleges and Institutes all across the globe in different countries, mainly in United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Central Asian Republics, China, Gulf, many European and South East Asian countries. How is studying abroad now of relevance or anything to be proud of considering the growing number of problems day-in-and-day-out, be it owing to COVID pandemic related or owing to internal disturbances in many countries and the tremendous stress and panic related to such ever increasing problematic situation. We have all witnessed evacuation efforts from time to time of millions of stranded Indians abroad and most of them being student population. As per reports mentioning statistics of 2020 report by UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, around 18 million India’s diaspora population have been evacuated till now.
In the period of growing unrest prevalent in many countries abroad, it is not understandable as to why the students are attracted to go and study abroad when our own nation has all the more educational facilities for undergoing graduation study or higher education. In fact there are very many good State-run Universities and even recognized private universities spread across the country be it in the field of technology, medicine, management, humanities, etc. which even attracts foreign students to India. That being so, what tempts our own students to go looking out for pursuing their studies abroad? One might think it is because of cheap educational facilities available in some of the countries. We may not forget that they come with accompanying drawbacks.
For example, a student studying in any of the Russian universities or Central Asian Republic universities has to pass the mandatory Russian language in first year of their respective studies and then carry on with the specific subject of study. It is common knowledge that medicine is one of the difficult subjects for study even in English language then how does one cope up with medical studies that too in a foreign language?
Similarly, there are other countries such as China, Germany, etc. where the Universities teach only in Chinese or in German language and the student concerned has to pass the concerned foreign language first before carrying on with their specific subject study. Even after passing the medical studies abroad, the students need to clear the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) consequent to one’s return to India and in order to be eligible to practice medicine in our country, which becomes rather very difficult since the students have studied the course in a foreign language and find the same difficult to clear in English language. This is one another big hurdle. Then there are other difficulties involved when one decides to go for graduation or for pursuing higher studies abroad such as getting accustomed to the local severe climatic conditions in many of the European or Central Asian or American countries, getting adjusted in not so good hostels, language constraints, new found pandemic fears, difficulty in obtaining visas, chances of getting entangled many times with fake or fraudulent agents who usurp the money and vanish, issue of fake universities, cases of abrupt closing down of universities, difficulty in getting education loans, etc. etc.
Already we have lots of private universities undertaking various academic programs at under graduate and post-graduation level but still the takers are not as much owing may be to the reason of their high tuition and hostel fees but for that matter even the foreign universities be it the cheapest one also will match with our country’s private universities if we take into account the total cost including travel abroad etc. Even many times the students not only lose on their academic years due to abrupt closure of universities without notice or in case of evacuation due to various emergent situations but even their respective families losing on huge amount of money invested for children’s study abroad and many times selling one’s properties or getting huge loan etc. For such families, this kind of scenario is really bombarding, to say the least.
Considering the various drawbacks of studying abroad, it is time a serious consideration is given that preference be given to studying in one’s own country instead of flying to other foreign nations and living a life there full of anxiety and stress. After all, children complete their 12 years schooling in India, then what makes them to migrate to foreign countries. It is not that good placements are not provided after studying graduation or post-graduation in India itself but the trend of studying abroad is seeing an upward move only, regardless of the day-to-day difficulties faced in a foreign land may be due to lack of awareness of the development of academic institutions in our own country and similar lack of awareness regarding the placement given post-higher studies. The more sad part is that after doing 12-years of schooling in India, a student goes to study in a foreign land many a times not to return to motherland. It is time we stop this phenomenon of brain-drain and help in developing our own nation.
