Goyal Seeks Inbound Students From Developed Nations, Casting Education as an Export
He promoted NEP 2020-enabled dual degrees alongside time-split study models to scale foreign enrolment.
Overview
- Speaking at the Vice Chancellors’ Conclave hosted by IIFT in New Delhi on March 6, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal urged universities to internationalise Indian higher education.
- He proposed split-study options such as a three-year programme with one year in India and two at the home university, or a balanced division of time between both institutions.
- Goyal said “education as a service” could lift export earnings and extend India’s educational reach, citing FTA negotiations with developed economies and claiming wide global trade coverage through India’s deals.
- He highlighted the current imbalance of roughly 28 Indian students abroad for each foreign student in India and voiced an ambition to attract around 1.3 million international students in the coming years.
- Pointing to NEP 2020 provisions for international campuses, dual degrees and exchanges, he pressed for curriculum updates, teacher retraining, and greater focus on AI, quantum computing and machine learning.