Indian Government to ease norms for African students

India’s foreign policy focus on Africa is soon going to reflect in its educational policy also. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) while reworking its initiative for foreign students has decided that students from Africa should get special attention in Indian educational institutions, both in government and private.

MHRD sources said India has become an attractive educational destination not only for African students who come on government scholarship but even those who can pay for their study. “We want them to attend good institutions,” a source said. 

MHRD has also decided to put in place a new mechanism that will ensure that after students are allotted a university they should go to good colleges. On the lines of many US universities, the ministry also wants Indian universities to conduct remedial courses for African students. Earlier this month, a senior ministry official received a lot of complaints from African students about the lack of infrastructural facilities as also about their problems in various colleges of Pune that offer courses in Marathi language. These students — mostly on scholarship offered by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) and Indian Technical Education Cooperation — said they are facing problems from Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO).

As part of its comprehensive programme to attract foreign students and make their stay in India comfortable, MHRD Secretary Ashok Thakur has mooted a new scheme to make international hostel and foreign student office in 15-20 universities. “Foreign Student Office should be one stop institution that should take care of all the needs of foreign students so that they do not have to run around for various clearances,” ministry official said.

The ministry has convened a meeting of University Grants Commission (UGC), ICCR, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to look into the issues relating to welfare of foreign students. A seminar has been organized in Pune that has a large number of foreign students and vice-chancellors and deans of universities having sizeable foreign students to emphasize upon them the need for welfare of foreign students studying in India.

Source: The Times of India, December 22, 2013

Home ministry blocks IIT foreign faculty move

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has stalled appointments of foreign teachers by Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D), despite the nod of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) — the roadblock hitting plans to globalise faculty at the IITs. The IITs, India’s premier engineering schools, will now need to wait longer to hire foreign teachers even if they hold Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards that give them most economic rights available to Indian citizens.

Hiring even OCI card holders — as IIT, Delhi, was doing — is against the Citizenship Act of 1955, in the absence of a special government order, the home ministry has said, sources said. “It is a setback…and although we expect to sort this out within the government, it has embarrassed IIT, Delhi. It could also end up hurting all the other IITs since foreign faculty — already wary of Indian bureaucracy — may now rethink whether they want to come to the IITs,” a senior official said.

The concerns were raised at a recent meeting between IIT directors and senior MHRD officials, sources said. The MHRD will now approach the MHA and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to try and obtain an in-principle approval from them for the appointment of foreign faculty at the IITs, the sources added.

“Instead of case-by-case approvals, we want to try and get the MHA and the MEA agree to our plan as a general principle, to avoid repeated embarrassments of this nature,” a source said. HT was the first to report — on September 2, 2010 — the proposal by the IITs to allow them to hire foreign faculty on a permanent basis.

The IIT Council — the highest decision making body of the IITs — headed by HRD minister Kapil Sibal agreed to the proposal and decided to allow the Institutes to fill up to 10 % of their permanent teaching posts with foreign faculty. But early in 2011, the MEA raised the first of objections — refusing to liberalise visa norms to allow foreigners to hold permanent jobs in India. It however allowed faculty to be hired on a five-year contract which can be renewed.

Source: Hindustan Times, June 30, 2011

>No permanent IIT foreign faculty

>In a major setback to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) plan, the Ministry for External Affairs (MEA) has rejected a proposal to liberalise visa norms to allow foreign teachers to take up permanent posts at the IITs. The MEA has refused to change the rules under which each foreign faculty m ember at the IITs needs to re-obtain a work visa every five years, top government and IIT sources have confirmed to HT.

Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal had on September 11, 2010 announced the plan to allow the IITs to fill up to 10% of their permanent teaching posts with foreign faculty. The proposal — first reported by HT on September 2, 2010 — was approved by the IIT Council — the highest decision making body of the IITs — and is aimed at reducing a massive faculty crunch plaguing the IITs.

But the MEA’s refusal to allow foreign faculty to join with visas of longer duration than five years means that the IITs will not be able to offer permanent posts to foreign faculty. “We will need to continue to offer contractual appointments — something we wanted to, and quite frankly, need to change,” an IIT Director said.

Each IIT is facing a faculty crunch between 15 and 40% with a total of over 1,000 faculty posts vacant across the premier engineering schools. The Institutes have over the past year however received a number of applications from foreign faculty, including Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) keen to teach at the IITs. The IITs are arguing that permanent posts would help them lure the best of foreign teachers. All foreign teachers are at present required to teach as visiting or ad-hoc faculty.

Source: Hindustan Times, February 18, 2011