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Chidanand Rajghatta
WASHINGTON, DEC 13: Those visa lines snaking around the American Embassy and consulates in India won't get shorter any time soon. Indian students continue to stream into the United States in record numbers even as fresh academic pastures have opened up in Australia, Canada and Europe, according to a latest study on international education.
A staggering 311,000 Indian students have come to the United States for higher studies during the last decade, making India one of the leading countries of origin for foreign students in the US, according to a report titled Open Doors, an annual study on international educational exchange issued by the Institute of International Education.
In the academic year 1997-98 alone nearly 34,000 Indian students came to the US out of a total of about 480,000 foreign students.
India came fourth in international student enrollment in the US this academic year, behind Japan (47,073), China (46,958) and Korea (42,890). Asian students constituted more than 50 per cent offoreign admissions.Although American universities and colleges remain the first choice of international students worldwide, recent trends show that the US' share of international students has dropped to 30 per cent, down from 40 per cent in the 1980s.
But Indian students continued to make a beeline to the US at an average of about 33,000 each year in the 1990s, up from about 25,000 per year in the 1980s. Indian student traffic to the US remained at less than 10,000 a year till 1980 and increased dramatically thereafter.
The 1990s inflow peaked at 35,950 in 1992-93 and dropped to 30,641 in 1996-97 before registering a 10 per cent growth this year to reach 33,818.Indian students also headed out to other countries in increased numbers, including relatively new venues like Australia. Indian student traffic to Australia has gone up nearly 400 per cent over the last four years, jumping from 488 students in 1993 to 2400 students in 1997.
But it is the US campus and the American Dream which beckons most. Themajority of the Indian students coming to the United States study at the graduate level (74.3 per cent). Undergraduate studies constitute 21.2 per cent.
Separate figures for Indian students in specific academic areas were not available, but some of the numbers suggested they were mainly headed for the science and engineering disciplines. Of the 65,145 foreign enrollments in doctoral institutions in 1997/98, nearly 10 per cent were listed as Indian, second behind China at 11.16 per cent. Indian enrollment in research institutions was third -- behind China and Korea at 8.73 per cent of nearly 200,000 admissions.
Although no accurate figures are available as to how many students return to India, anecdotal evidence and comments from administration officials suggest that perhaps upward of 75 per cent of them do not return after their studies, preferring to stay on in the US, work, and become part of the American melting pot.
``It is fair to say a vast majority of them remain here for extended trainingperiods, find jobs here, and get integrated into American society,'' a consular official who served as a visa officer in India said.
However, experts feel this trend could be changing. With increasing globalisation and economic integration the job market is opening up beyond the United States. ``There are more chances now to find productive and lucrative jobs back in India. I can see many more Indian students return home now,'' says David Arnold, executive vice-president of the IIE who worked with the Ford Foundation in New Delhi for six years this decade.
The nearly 34,000 Indian students who made their way to the US this last academic year is in addition to the nearly 30,000 Indian professionals who came here during the same period on what is known as the H1-B work visa. Preliminary figures suggest that Indians -- mostly computer software professionals -- bagged more than 40 per cent of the 65,000 H1-B visas that were issued this year.
The 64,000 potentially skilled and educated Indians who came tothe US in just one year would have engendered outraged cries of `brain drain' some years back, but the rapid global integration appears to have calmed such dismay. ``In many ways, they are providing a resource base for India,'' says Wajahat Habibullah, a senior diplomat who oversees education and culture at the Indian Embassy in Washington.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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