New Delhi: In a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State of Education, Dr. Subhas Sarkar laid out the number of students who went to study abroad between 2017-2022.
"There is no index for capturing the category of Indians going abroad for higher education purpose. Purpose of Indians going abroad for higher education is captured manually based either on their verbal disclosure or the type of visa of the destination country produced by them at the time of immigration clearance," Sarkar stated in his reply while disclosing that 7,50, 365 Indian students left the country in 2022 for the purpose of education.
The number is a 69% increase compared to 2021, which showed 4,44,553 students went abroad to study.
Between 2017-2022, Around 30 lakh students made their journey to a foreign destination in order to pursue studies, though the Ministry has not specified how many are undergraduate and postgraduate students.
The number of students studying abroad between 2017-22 | Lok Sabha data
On the question of amount being spent by Indian students abroad being much more than the education budget of the country, Sarkar replied that such information is not stored by the Education Department.
Sarkar further added that though India doesn't have any plans to establish an International University of the highest quality in order to save funds, UGC has drafted enabling Regulations to facilitate the establishment of campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India.
"The draft University Grants Commission (UGC) (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions In India) Regulations, 2023 was placed in the public domain, vide public notice dated 5th January 2023, seeking feedback, suggestions, comments, etc. from all the stakeholders by 18th January 2023. However, in view of the requests received from the stakeholders, the last date for receiving comments on the draft Regulations has been extended till 20th February 2023," stated Sarkar.
Earlier Centre had stated that 6,00,000 Indian students are studying abroad till November 2022, with the top 10 popular countries being the US, UK, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Australia, and Kazakhstan.
