DrEducation: Trends and Insights on Global Higher Education

NAFSA: Association of International Educators Annual Conference is taking place in Vancouver from May 29-June 3rd. Nearly 8,000 international education professionals around the world are expected to participate.  Mr. Anand Sudarshan of Manipal Education is the International Plenary speaker at the conference. It is a major recognition of the work undertaken by Mr. Sudarshan and the Manipal group.   

I will be co-presenting two sessions at the NAFSA conference:

International Recruitment: Bridging Research and Practice
The co-presenters are: Pamela Barrett, i-graduate and Dan Chatham, Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences

Developing and Expanding Partnerships with India: Why, How, and Where to Begin?
The co-presenters are: Shannon Bishop Harrison - Institute of International Education, Nicole Ranganath - University of California-Davis and Joti Sekhon - Winston-Salem State University.

Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Latest official data on students and colleges in India indicates a healthy growth in terms of institutional capacity, according to UGC. Between 2004 and 2009, number of colleges increased by nearly 9,000 and student enrollment increased by 3.65 million students.

Click here to access latest data for 2016 and growth from 2008.

However, this healthy growth in numbers has its share of paradoxes and problems. It becomes obvious that in comparison with other growth indicators like GDP or number of cars, higher education has seriously lagged behind. Yet, there are signs of overcapacity and disillusion. The rate of growth of teachers (faculty) was slower than the number of universities and colleges. This has created a shortage of qualified faculty in higher education institutions.Number of students have grown at a slower pace as compared to the number of universities and colleges. This has resulted in oversupply of seats and many of which remain vacant.Number of colleges have grown at a rate s…

In my previous posting, I argued that there is a slow and emerging trend of global Indians moving back to India, however, after excluding the people who had to move back involuntarily due to lack of jobs or visas, the numbers of Indians moving voluntarily is too small to qualify as a major shift.

Some recent reports have stated that foreign students educated in the US and Indian professionals are returing to their India in a large number. Anecdotal evidence supports this slow trend of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) moving to India however, it has a major flaw--confounding intentions with action and compulsion with choice.

Many Indians intend to go back, given the connections with the country and family and hopes of leveraging the dollar savings, social prestige and professional advancement. However, very few are actually able to act on that intentions, due to the comfort of existing life style, children and hope of Green-card.

A recent research entitled "Will They Return?" highlighted the issue of lack of faculty in Indian higher education and recommended recruiting Indian students abroad for faculty roles. The article based on the research notes that "Indians living in the U.S. are willing to come back to their home country....[and] found that only 8% strongly pr…