Why students would choose to go abroad?

Migration of Indian students to abroad for higher education started much early in 80’s and consistently increased. The destinations of priority are USA, Australia, UK and Canada. One of the reasons quoted was that the education system in India does not provide much flexibility and add practical application.

The competency and skilled based education abroad helped them to find employment easily and enjoy the citizenship benefits later. If we look at the fee paid at these universities, are almost 3 to 4 times more than the Indian Universities. Some of the surveys among students say that it is lack of technology, competent faculty, industrial visits, summer internship are lacking in Indian Universities. For some of the students, it is luxury, leisure and quality of life that is attractive.

Admission to top institutions / Universities in India is tough and all cannot reach to such institutions. The kind of grading and employment opportunities are somehow restricted this population from top-ranked universities. The ranking of universities abroad is widely done according to their programs offered and hence students have better choices and they are categorically not sub-classified for employment.

The employer mainly looks at the demonstration and application of knowledge and adaptability. A common concern about the Indian education system is that its academic institutes focus only on delivering popular STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) courses. This indicates that many of courses are not available to the student’s choice. The Indian education also lack in developing a knowledge and any course is an amalgamation of several other courses and sometimes can see overlap between courses and subjects. The courses at universities abroad clearly define; objectives, learning outcomes and deliverable skills.

On the other hand, there is a rich variety of courses available to international students in countries like the US, UK, and Canada. There still seems to be a lack of opportunities for practical application of skills learned through conceptual understanding in the Indian education system. And because of this, many students in India struggle to get job placements after graduation. The root cause of this problem circles back to the Indian education system emphasis on rote learning to remember concepts rather than understanding them.

Accreditation & why employers prefer them

Most of the courses at International universities undergo professional accreditation. The process of accreditation is evaluation and mapping the competency of curriculum against several mandatory and core requirements. Let us look at the challenges for an employer. The deliverables expected from an employer on any project is highly qualitative, time and cost-based. Their expectation from a campus placement is an industry ready graduate, who has the capability of critical thinking and problem-solving. This is only possible by introducing these challenges in the curriculum and the students are nurtured during the course delivery. In India, we have only accreditation of courses/colleges/ universities by the national body for accreditation. These are mainly focusing on infrastructure availability, number of faculty and to some extent the research and these are very generic in nature. These accreditations are not global at first instance and does not address any specialised competency.

While we have seen the challenges and what attracts the migration of students from India to abroad, it is still possible to offer the same experience in India and all that is required is a paradigm shift in the education thought process. So, do you mean to say that it is not possible?

At the RICS School of Built Environment, a business school concept from the world-renowned 150-year-old global professional body, in construction and real-estate, has worked hard to achieve this change along with Amity University. The school engage students in active learning through class participation, dialogue exchange, case studies, and practical off- and on-campus experiences that make learning fun and meaningful. The school has been able to hit the requirement of market and make a difference in the construction and real estate industry.