India is busy in quota politics and Indian politicians are engaged in dividing votes on the basis of caste and communities. But Indian talent are going abroad and making the economy of foreign countries stronger .
Indian Members of Parliament ares fighting in Parliament on quota issue but they are not thinking of stopping talented Indians going abroad in search of job or for getting higher studies.
Obama administration has learned lessons from 2008 crisis and trying its best to stop its recurrence.But Indian government has no time to think for solution of problems but Indian politicians are busy more in creating wealth for their kith and kin through corrupt means and keeping society divided on sentimental issues related to caste and communities.
256% rise in Indian students going abroad in 10 years, study says
Why do Indian Students go Abroad to Pursue Higher Studies?
Here are reasons why Indian students go to study in foreign countries - advancement and immigration.Published by Shuchi Sharma on 19-03-2012Where are Indian students likely to apply in the 2012 admissions cycle for starting their programmes in 2013? To answer this question, we need to understand students’ primary motivation for going abroad and segments of students.The study abroad decision-making process is a complex interplay of many variables, including future job prospects, cost of education, scholarships, availability of quality local programmes, social recognition and opportunities of immigration that differ based on students’ academic and financial ability.
The study abroad application process is time-intensive as international students typically apply nine to 12 months in advance. Thus, the applicant trends for the incoming class of 2013 will be influenced by student perceptions and expectations of their external environment in 2012.
Since studying abroad is expensive, prospective international students’ sensitivity to external factors, such as immigration policies and economic outlook, is quite high. For example, the declining availability of financial aid due to budget cuts in universities, low job prospects, and devaluation of the Indian currency may make it difficult for Indian students to go abroad. Prospective students intuitively perform a cost-benefit analysis of their study abroad investments, weighing the expected total outflow against projected returns in terms of achieving their objectives.
Indian students going abroad can be classified into two segments – one moves for advancement and the other for immigration. The groups differ because of their motivation, targeted destination, and intended level of study. The table below is not all-encompassing, there are students who overlap both segments – but it provides a framework for deepening our understanding of the student segments.
The advancement segment comprises of students who want to go overseas in search of career advancement opportunities and are more likely to enrol in graduate level programmes. They perceive the US and UK to be countries offering higher quality programmes. Global rankings that repeatedly show the dominance of American and British universities reinforce perceptions of institutional quality in these two countries.
Students of the immigration segment primarily go abroad to use education as a pathway to immigration. They typically do not want to invest much time and money in education and hence enrol in programmes that offer higher potential for immigration in the destination country. Given that Australia and Canada’s immigration policies welcome this pathway partly due to their skills shortage, many Indian students head to these countries for eventual immigration.
The US is a top destination for Indians. Of the 185,000 Indian students enrolled in higher education institutions abroad, the US leads with a share of hosting nearly 55% of all Indian students followed by the UK and Australia, according to UNESCO data. However, the US witnessed stagnancy in Indian enrolment numbers during the last couple of years. The residual impact of the recession made Indian students reassess their options. Availability of loans was becoming tougher and post-graduation employment prospects were becoming bleaker. With the economic uncertainty, some value-for-money conscious Indian students have been putting off their plans to study in the US.
However, there are signs that the trend is set to reverse, and the US will soon begin to attract more Indian students.
First, the US economy is reviving, and job pro-spects are improving. This is important for advancement students who prefer to remain in the US or work for a few years before returning to India. Second, US institutions are becoming increasingly aggressive in their outreach to Indian students. Third, the emergence of an undergraduate student pipeline in India is adding more students in the enrolment mix of those seeking to go to the US.
Finally, the UK, which is the strongest competitor for the US in attracting advancement students, is restricting post-education work opportunities by tightening immigration laws. In contrast, the US has adopted visa rules favouring international students. In particular, extending the ‘optional practical training for science and engineering' students to 29 months is a big attraction for Indian students as nearly 60% of Indian students enrol in master’s programmes in engineering and computer science. In fact, the number of Indian students taking up optional practical training increased by nearly 5,000 students in 2010/11 from the previous year.
The immigration segment heading towards Australia and Canada is also expected to increase. In Australia, the number of onshore visas issued in the fourth quarter of 2011 was 3,339 for the higher education category, whereas 15,031 visas were issued for the vocational education and training category. Canada, too, is attracting large number of international students to vocational programmes. http://studyabroad.htcampus.com/article_detail/why-do-indian-students-go-abroad-pursue-higher-studies/
Going Abroad? First Serve the Country, Doctors Told
Tuesday, 05 June 2012, 10:08 IST
Kolkata: The Indian government plans to bring a regulation to ensure doctors have a compulsory stint in the country especially in the rural sector, Minister of State for Health Sudip Bandopadhyay said.
"The government is spending crores of rupees for making doctors and specialists, but after passing out most of them go abroad. We are planning to bring in a regulation/declaration which will make sure that the doctors serve in their state/country for a specific period," said Bandopadhyay.
He said the government was planning to increase the number of medical seats in order to produce more doctors.
"We will increase the number of seats in order to generate more doctors so that there are enough doctors to serve in the rural belt. West Bengal is also planning to increase the number of MBBS and post graduate seats every year," he said.
West Bengal Minister of State for Health Chandrima Bhattacharjee said the private health care institutions should assist the state government in order to revamp the rural health care sector.
"The government is spending crores of rupees for making doctors and specialists, but after passing out most of them go abroad. We are planning to bring in a regulation/declaration which will make sure that the doctors serve in their state/country for a specific period," said Bandopadhyay.
He said the government was planning to increase the number of medical seats in order to produce more doctors.
"We will increase the number of seats in order to generate more doctors so that there are enough doctors to serve in the rural belt. West Bengal is also planning to increase the number of MBBS and post graduate seats every year," he said.
West Bengal Minister of State for Health Chandrima Bhattacharjee said the private health care institutions should assist the state government in order to revamp the rural health care sector.
Globalization – Brain Drain
Human Capital Flight or Brain Drain is the migration of educated and skilled professionals from less developed places to more developed places. The usual reasons are going abroad for further education and settling there or taking jobs in developed countries for better salaries and living standards. While brain drain does result in financial profit for the persons migrating or their families they may remit money to, there are other less realized aspects of brain drain that also need to be considered.
Expense of education borne by less developed country, while fruits of the person’s service are reaped by developed countries. Today’s outrage on Twitter was the government making it mandatory for doctors going abroad for further education to return to work in India after completing their education and reserves the right to enforce it by not issuing No Objection Certificates to doctors who don’t comply. The government of India estimates some 3,000 doctors who studied in government subsidized hospitals have left the country in the last one year. The annual cost of each student is about 31.31 lakh rupees, while fees charged are Rs.850/- per annum. The government is paying the difference per student that results in no gain to the citizens. 939 crores is no amount to sneeze at. In a country with high poverty, scarcity of medical professionals and tight budgets, this money should be better utilized or recovered.
As far back as 2001, the UNDP had estimated that India loses about $2 billion a year from IT professionals taking up jobs in the US alone.
Some argue that those working abroad remit money. But a country’s well being is not money alone. When 3000 doctors go abroad, there are supporting jobs that get reduced too. Less nurses, less ward boys, less patients treated, more losses due to ill health, less villages with access to healthcare… it is all interconnected – which is why governments subsidize – for development.
On a “for higher education” scale… a 2009 report by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) estimated that India lost around $10 billion annually in foreign exchange from an average 5 lakh students choosing to go abroad for further education every year and made a strong case for deregulating higher education. The concern of the Indian government that doctors going abroad for further education return to work in the country makes sense. But more is needed. here need to be more and better education facilities to keep the students in the country – which will also result in more jobs within the country. It is a cycle.
The government spends considerable money in education from basic schooling to subsidizing degrees that have costs well beyond the average man’s capacity to spend. This expense is intended as an empowerment of citizens as well as raising the skill capital of the country. Brain drain delays the development of the country. In his essay on Globalizing Inequality, P. Sainath quotes statistics from Africa from the Economic times, and puts them in a context of national interest.
…today, according to the Financial Times, the entire continent of Africa has just 20,000 engineers and scientists to serve a continent of six hundred million people, because today, there are more African scientists and doctors and engineers working in the United States than in all of Africa and much of this drain of medical personnel has come from South Africa – the country facing the world’s largest AIDS pandemic.
Lower employment in developed countries. Migrant professionals increase competition to native professionals and often work at lower salaries, resulting in increased unemployment for the local population. UK’s visa restrictions for professionals from 2010 came from rising unemployment in the country with hundreds of thousands unemployed IT professionals and engineers while 36,000 immigrated for jobs from outside the EU. As the economy tightens worldwide, these inequalities become more and more visible and resented.
But beyond this, there is also a social cost. When well educated people leave for more prosperous surroundings, their influence also leaves with them beyond their services. Educated minds lead to a more thinking society and increasing brain drain adds to the less developed areas remaining permanently mired in poverty and less world aware society.
Brain drain, or Human Capital Flight increases inequality and makes poorer countries poorer and richer countries richer. A few random examples come to mind. Michio Kaku, the scientist-activist calls the H1B America’s secret weapon. It is the visa for professionals to immigrate. Over half of America’s top professionals are non-Americans and they are driving the country’s prosperity, because they change the ratio of educated and skilled professionals in society – making the country skill dense and thus with more opportunity too. On the other hand, if India has one doctor for 1700 people, Ghana has one for 6700 people. 305,000 Malaysians migrated overseas between March 2008 and August 2009 compared to 140,000 in 2007. According to the official Chinese media, 65,000 Chinese last year secured immigration or permanent resident status in the United States, 25,000 in Canada and 15,000 in Australia in 2007. A 2007 study of Chinese students found that 7 out of 10 students enrolling abroad never return. And while it is true that lack of opportunity or oppression drives or abundant opportunity pulls these people, these numbers of people moving to greener pastures is also making the pastures greener, and their loss is desertifying the pastures they leave.
Many have recommended deporting/encouraging return of Pakistani professionals back to Pakistan as a possible solution for dealing with extremism by increasing powerful, influential voices who have seen the merits of a developed and inclusive society. Obviously no one imagined them to pick up guns and fighting wars with the Taliban, but the influence of thoughts that were more broad minded would dilute the influence of extremism and provide alternative ways of thinking for people at large. In other words, they would strengthen the moderate voice. It is no coincidence that reversal of brain drain was suggested as a developmental intervention.
Needless to say, I support the government’s decision to make it mandatory for doctors to serve in the country even if they go abroad for further education. In addition to doctors studying in government colleges, I think doctors studying in private colleges should also be required this, though for a shorter period. There are reasons – below.
- Whether a government or private educated doctor, the government still has made considerable contributions to making that education possible and in the cost that is possible in India. Consider, for example an Indian doctor and an American doctor working on similar jobs, paying off their education loans. Even if the Indian doctor gets paid less, guess who finds the payments easier? That is the difference in a developed and developing country, which makes a developing country more needy. I see nothing wrong in citizens with the capacity to pursue extensive education being expected to have a stake in helping develop the country.
- I think this should apply to all professionals, not only doctors, though doctors have more conspicuous investment and scarcity of professionals.
- This should not apply to those who do all their degree education abroad, since their investment is also in another country.
I got several significant comments, which I’d like to talk of here.
This, I think is a matter of education reform, and applicable to all students whether they continue working in India or abroad.
the question of how the students can “give back” is indeed a serious one. the number of students that manage to study medicine in India is largely due to government subsidized education. Two issues here 1. How do you get them to “pay us back” and 2. What about all who studied in private colleges.1. Lets say, 4.5 years of studies and the avg. 10 lakh that the govt spends on a student can be reimbursed in 1 year of internship and 1 year of Bond. The bond already exists, and lasts 6 months long. Problem is, there is no enforcement. Is 6 months enough? will one year fix this? Difficult decisions to make. In the 6 months, of the docs who do it seriously, a large number of them see upwards of five hundred patients a week, many do twice as many. thats a few hundered thousand patients treated by the lot of them, does that cover the costs?Now, they get to go abroad only after they finish the bond, and get a NOC. The new “law” adds a clause to the NOC, it says studies that you do on your own money, in your own time, also, now belong to the nation. Meaning, you come back, irrespective of how many years you have worked in India. and “given back”2. What about all those who did not study in government colleges? Like me. My college made me do a bond, 2 years paid pittance and on call24x7, I enjoyed it, as did most others I know. Now, 3 years down the line i might want to go work in the US for 10 years, maybe my wife wants to do a PhD, but if I go by the j1 Visa, i cannot, my visa expires when I finish studying.
I am not certain even in this instance the government is speaking of private colleges, though I support even if they are. Also, I am not certain the government means stints working in India for every higher education course. The impression I got was mandatory serving in India, which would be a one time deal. Let us see what clarifications emerge.
Additionally, I think for exceptional cases, there should be an alternative to reimburse the government for the money invested in their education in stead of working, though I hesitate to recommend this, because it isn’t only about money, but a professional less in the country. Also, extremely specialized doctors would find it far cheaper to pay back than invest time, but our country needs the neurosurgeons more than the money.
I think some of this also ought to be in reforming education so that students form attachments in the country and genuinely care about the need of the country, which will go a long way toward making this easier for all.
Another comment referred to this as a “communist” choice. I disagree. It is about as communist as the country making the specialized education possible and affordable or people earning more also paying taxes at higher rates. On the other hand, it is capitalist in an exploitative way to the interests of people of both countries to get educated using resources of a poorer country, depriving someone of them, and then going abroad to undercut salaries for doctors who have invested far more money to get qualified there.
In my eyes, while specific solutions may be good for specific groups of people, governments being responsible for entire countries, have a responsibility to make decisions that will help all. The decision to enforce professionals to serve in the country impacts thousands of lives beyond that student alone.
hi. the post is really mind boggling. thanks for shedding light on critical issues.
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