The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Wanted: homes for foreign students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 15, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Wanted: homes for foreign students

By K. Ramachandran

CHENNAI, JULY 14. Having received nearly 70 applications from foreign students for admissions to its regular degree programmes, the University of Madras is planning to bring out a directory of families that are willing to accept foreign students as paying guests.

"From the enquiries we are receiving, many foreign students seem to prefer staying with a local family than in a hostel, probably because they want to know our culture better... That's why we are identifying the families which want to accept foreign students," says the Vice-Chancellor, S.P. Thyagarajan.

So far, the academic and student coordinators of the University's international centre have identified about 30 families but "we want to wait and prepare a more exhaustive list so that all of them can be compiled into a directory" Dr. Thyagarajan told The Hindu.

"Till now the university has about 67 applications from foreign students (from Malaysia, Singapore, Korea and the Middle East) for joining various courses and the University Students Advisory Bureau (USAB) is preparing the directory of willing families to accommodate them. In due course, we may also give a public notification asking more such willing families that want to host foreign students to register with the university," the Vice- Chancellor said.

Inviting more foreign students is part of a concerted effort by Indian universities led by the Universities Grants Commission (UGC) to internationalise Indian brand of higher education. Recently, a UGC delegation participated in the NAFSA (Association of International Educators) fair at Baltimore in the United States. The UGC Chairman, Arun Nigavekar, led the delegation that included the Hyderabad University Vice-Chancellor, Kota Harinarayana Rao; the convener of the UGC-PIHEAD (Promoting Indian Higher Education abroad), Bhushan Patwardhan, besides Dr. Thyagarajan.

Encouraged by the response for the Indian exhibits, the country delegation decided to put up a major `India pavilion' at the next NAFSA conference to be held at Seattle, U.S. in 2005. A group of identified Indian universities would be asked to have separate stalls. An exclusive session would also be held on `Study India programme'

The Vice-Chancellor said he would make a presentation on the NAFSA conference-Indian experience in the forthcoming Vice-Chancellors' conference to be held at the Goa University on July 31 and August 1.

Dr. Thyagarajan agreed that providing international class accommodation was critical for inviting foreign students. The UGC was tying up with a Jain organisation for providing good accommodation for foreign students in the four metropolitan cities. The University of Madras too was working on these lines.

On the academic side, he noted that foreign students were seeking `tailor-made programmes' (instead of the normal degree or diploma programmes). Secondly, students who want to take up the `Study India programme' - where students from a foreign university spends a few weeks or months to take up one or two courses as part of their degree or postgraduate programme - wanted to come to India during their summer vacation, July and August.

"That's the time we start our regular academic year, so we feel we can accommodate them," Dr. Thyagarajan said.

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