While the Central Government along with several different ministries has been working towards easing the study abroad process for many aspiring Indian students, in a recent announcement, it has started evaluating “the work profile and professional engagements of students” who travelled abroad for higher studies on government scholarships, after caution was raised by Intelligence reports.
According to the Economic Times, the central agencies alerted union ministries on funding Indian students enrolled in universities abroad on scholarships, where the awardees were found to be “affiliating with agencies or working on areas or themes that project India in an unfortunate light on international platforms.”
Offering nearly 150-200 students per year government-funded scholarships to pursue higher studies abroad, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Ministries of Social Justice and Empowerment are a few that offer central sector overseas scholarships for students from disadvantaged and low-income sections to study in highly-reputable universities in the world, as reported by ET.
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Under the conditions spelt out within the National Overseas Scholarship scheme, the government can pursue a follow-up with the students availing the government scholarships, regarding their “future plans”. According to the NOS scheme, awardees must travel back to India two years after completing their respective studies.
After alleged misuse of scholarships by students were highlighted by agencies, ET reported that North Block officials confirmed that new guidelines allow “the Indian mission to keep track of adverse developments regarding its candidates, if applicable”. Based on the information gathered, the continuation of the respective scholarships will be assessed.
Ever since the launch, the number of recipients of these scholarships has seen a significant rise over the years. Around 19 students received these scholarships in 2015-16 which spiked to 63 in 2019-20, further spiking to 123 in 2021-22.
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The ET reported that data collected revealed a large number of students under scholarships pursuing higher education in Pure Sciences, Management and Engineering. The data also revealed that 61 out of the 100 selected candidates, chose management and engineering programmes, meanwhile, 24 went out for programmes in pure sciences. On the other hand, only seven students chose to pursue higher education in humanities and social science courses, ET highlighted.
Source: The Economic Times
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