As pandemic halts brain drain, Centre mulls ways to keep students at home

Increased intake in elite institutions, lateral entry options being considered

Increasing intake in elite institutions, lateral entry options and joint degrees with foreign universities are some of the ideas on the table as the Centre brainstorms ways to use the COVID-19 pandemic to curb brain drain, and encourage the lakhs of students who leave the country for higher studies each year to enrol in top performing Indian universities instead.

A panel to be headed by the University Grants Commission chairperson D.P. Singh will submit suggestions in two weeks, according to an official statement.

Over 7.5 lakh students travelled abroad in 2019 alone, resulting in valuable foreign exchange and a number of bright minds going out of the country, Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank observed at a brainstorming session on Friday. He noted that the government’s own manifesto called for a 50% hike in seat capacity in all premier institutions by 2024, by when the number of Institutes of Eminence were also slated to rise from 20 to 50. He suggested that this could be used to coax bright students to stay in India.

Scaling up

IIT Delhi director V. Ramgopal Rao warned that any move to increase intake at the IITs — the country’s most-sought after institutions — would need to be a more comprehensive exercise rather than a simple hike in seat capacity. “I do personally believe there is scope for scaling up, but it cannot just be increasing intake. We would need to do many more things differently — the faculty, the faculty-student ratio, the residential campus that we have modelled the IITs after. It cannot any longer be residential, and if it is not residential, then the whole experience of IIT will look very different,” said Dr. Rao, who gave some inputs to the brainstorming session as requested by the Ministry.

“It is not a black and white kind of question. I do think IITs need to scale up, but it needs to be done very strategically,” he told

The Hindu , adding that scaling up existing IITs through extension campuses may be a better idea than starting new IITs. He pointed out that IIT intake is currently tiny, all 23 IITs cumulatively admitting fewer students than the 13,000 admitted by an American university like UCLA each year.

Specific mechanisms

Dr. Singh suggested that twinning programmes, dual degrees and better research facilities would also help students who want to come back to India due to the pandemic interrupting their studies abroad. His panel has been asked to come up with specific mechanisms to increase intake, explore twinning and joint degrees with global institutions, facilitate lateral entry into Indian universities for those who want to switch, facilitate online lectures by eminent international faculty, spur industry-academia linkages, and create multi-disciplinary and innovative programmes.

The All-India Council for Technical Education will oversee issues related to technical education, while separate sub-committees consisting of directors of IITs, NITs, vice-chancellors of central universities, and others, will assist in the process, according to the statement.