We may not have easy and clear answers as to when, why, and how Indian students began going abroad to study — particularly in the realm of higher education, but this process has been on for generations. It is essential to draw attention to the fact that ancient India has had at least two reputed ‘universities’, Nalanda and Taxila (the erstwhile Takshashila now located in Pakistan), which indeed attracted students from outside the subcontinent.
While during the ancient times the concept as well as the content of education was quite at variance and different from what evolved and spread widely during the modern period, the urge to seek knowledge has been ubiquitous and pervasive right from the time institutionalised form of imparting education emerged. However, we do have to recognise and acknowledge that ‘education’ in some form or the other has always been the sine qua non throughout the existence of Homo sapiens, howsoever family- or community-driven, and informal it may have been, and irrespective of the level of economic and socio-cultural development of a given society in any part of the world.
The very first three ‘modern’ universities, namely Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, got established in India during the colonial period in 1857, though some undergraduate degree colleges did precede the establishment of these universities in the three presidencies of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. For those aspiring for a higher degree, a kind of avenue existed, in general, in the British universities, because of the colonial scenario, though it was not uncommon for some to go to universities in the United States too.
Thus, ‘studying abroad’ — that magic phrase in educational circles today — is not really a recent phenomenon; it has been an educational trajectory for at least some sections of students in India for at least 150 years.
Those who could afford, paid for these overseas ventures, and for the less privileged but talented scholarships came in handy. Today, however, it has become rather easy to obtain bank loans which many are able to pay back given the rise in the income of both the lower classes as well as the middle classes. Also, quite a few philanthropic organisations are coming forward to disburse scholarships as well as loans at really soft interest rates. This has strengthened many a student from the erstwhile underprivileged and minority groups, including women students, to benefit from such good deeds and opportunities.
Unavailability of some courses, and the lack of appropriate ambience for higher education, in general, were indeed reasons for going abroad, at least during the very early period of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
It is also true that a lot of prominence and significance has all through been attached to the better quality of education prevalent abroad. It was invariably held that degrees from a foreign university were superior to those from the home universities.
Though this argument was true given the state of higher education in India during the said period, there, nevertheless, prevailed a notion that anything associated with the colonial rulers and their country was qualitatively better than things (including academic degrees) that were home spun. It is not out of place to point out that in some circles in India — in the contemporary context too — this notion of superiority of a foreign degree is still given quite a high level of leverage. Some of the recently-established private universities swear by and recruit only faculty with a foreign doctoral degree!
The surveys that rank universities in different countries as per their ‘performance’ have emerged rather recently, but do seem, at least in the present context, to add to the long-existing bias that exists in India in favour of better quality of outcomes vis-à-vis overseas universities. True, that though Indian universities do not feature anywhere in the top echelons in the ranking of higher educational institutions, and many an academic, not just in India but elsewhere too, question the methodology adopted in these processes, the fact remains that going by the various criteria and parameters adopted, most Indian universities do not make the cut.
I must hasten to add that many a higher educational institutions in India do have departments and centres that have done exceedingly well, and are undoubtedly abodes of excellence in the central and state university spheres; so also some departments in private universities. What our higher educational institutions suffer from is in terms of not measuring up in totality when all the departments and centres are weighed together at the pan-institutional level. This is because there exists a truly uneven range of quality across departments and centres. Reasons for such a state are many but nepotism and corruption in the recruitment of faculty is indeed a prime reason.
We also need to examine the developments during the last few decades, particularly as regards students going abroad for medical education to China, the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, and other East European countries, and do not get surprised, even Pakistan! It is clear that the much sought after medical degrees come at a much cheaper cost, almost at a fraction, than what they would have to pay in private Indian medical colleges.
Those who are after such medical degrees are mainly students who fail to obtain a high ranking in the currently prevalent National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to the MBBS and BDS courses, in State-run medical and dental colleges where the fees are substantially low. The beeline that is made to go abroad for a medical degree in this particular realm is out and out a cost-cutting mechanism.
However, students who obtain a medical degree from an overseas institution must clear the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) if they wish to practice in India. So much for a foreign degree.
So, today the lure of foreign universities is not just due to the sheen or quality alone, which probably was so some time back, but currently, there are many other reasons as delineated above.
MA Kalam, a social anthropologist, is Visiting Professor, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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