Foreign students second highest in Punjab: All-India Survey on Higher Education

Tribune News Service

Vishav Bharti

Chandigarh, January 30

Punjab is not only sending the highest number of students abroad but also housing the second highest number of foreign students in the country.

The fact came to light in the 11th All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2020-21 conducted by the Union Ministry of Education. As per the survey, the total number of foreign students, enrolled in higher education in the country, is 48,035. As much as 13.65 per cent of the foreign students are enrolled in Punjab’s higher educational institutions. The highest number of foreign students come to Karnataka (8,137), followed by Punjab (6,557), Maharashtra (4,912), Uttar Pradesh (4,654), Tamil Nadu (3,685), Delhi (2,809), Gujarat (2,646), Andhra Pradesh (2,385) and Odisha (2,180).

In the gender-wise break-up of foreign students in Punjab, 3,551 are male and 1,376 are female students.

The highest share of foreign students come from the neighbouring countries of which Nepal contributes 28.25 per cent, followed by Afghanistan 8.4 per cent, Bangladesh 5.7 per cent and the United States 5.1 per cent.

The top 10 countries from where students come to India include the United Arab Emirates (4.8 per cent), Bhutan (3.8 per cent), Sudan (3.3 per cent), Nigeria (2.9 per cent), Tanzania (2.7 per cent) and Yemen (2.3 per cent). The number of male students coming from these top 10 countries is higher than the number of female students.

When comes to the discipline of study among foreign students in India, B.Tech is the most favorite. As per the survey, there are 13 programmes which have more than 1,000 foreign students each and account for more than 75 per cent of the foreign students.

In the country, the highest number of students are enrolled in BTech (11,245 students) followed by BSc (3,439), BBA (3,314), BCom (2,605), BE (2,541), MBA (2,099), BPharma (2,021) and BCA (1,918). BA has a total number of 1,817 students with 51.6 per cent female students. MBBS has 944 students and PhD has 1,444 students.

Women teachers outnumber men

Another highlight of the survey is that in Punjab, the number of women teachers is much more than the men. There are 50,478 teachers in the higher education institutions, of which 20,217 are men and 30,261 women.

Higher number of students in private colleges

The number of students in private colleges in the state is more than double as compare to government colleges. There are 5.03 lakh students enrolled in the higher education institutions. In a break-up, 3.59 lakh students are enrolled in private colleges and 1.43 lakh in govt colleges.

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