For centuries, from Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru to Amartya Sen and Manmohan Singh, Indians have gone abroad to pursue higher education. Before the onset of the pandemic, more than 7,50,000 Indian students were studying abroad, spending $24 billion in foreign economies, which is around 1% of India’s GDP. The number is expected to rise to around 1.8 million by 2024 when our students will be spending nearly $80 billion outside India. Demand is soaring for various reasons, including the gap in India’s supply of quality education against the demand. With more than half the Indian population under the age of 25, and no Indian university in the world’s top 100, it is natural that aspirational students would look to study abroad.
Large benefits
Sushma Swaraj, as External Affairs Minister, referred to Indians abroad as “brand ambassadors”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson call Indians in the U.K. the “living bridge” between both countries. We celebrate the achievements of Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella. Yet, one has to only look at social media or hear some conversations to realise how much contempt a section of Indians shares towards those studying abroad. While such opinions do make some noise, the larger benefits in terms of soft power, knowledge transfer and remittances that come back to India render such noise baseless.
