Britain to send more students to India on educational tours

NEW DELHI, JULY 25: Universities UK International (UUKi) and British Council India have launched UKIERI Mobility Programme: Study in India, a bilateral pilot programme which will support UK universities to collaborate with Indian partners to send UK students to India as part of their studies.

The programme will commence on July 2019 and aims to generate up to 200 opportunities for undergraduate students at UK universities by March 2021, with priority given to students from traditionally underrepresented groups. The British Council is the United Kingdom's international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities; in this capacity, it promotes initiatives which support partnerships and student mobility across universities and countries.

The programme will support national and institutional-level objectives to:

• Increase the levels of outward student mobility from the UK to 13% by 2020, as set out in UUKi’s Go International: Stand Out campaign

• Support the employability of UK graduates and help them prepare for a globally competitive workforce

• Support the internationalization of Indian higher education through the diversification of the student body, and the consolidation of inter-institutional partnerships

Speaking about the collaboration, Vivienne Stern, Director, Universities UK International, said “This scheme will be good for individual students and good for UK universities, but it also fits neatly with the Government of India’s goal to attract a greater number of international students and support the development of international networks for some of India’s strongest universities”.

Barbara Wickham, OBE, Director, British Council India, added, “We believe students who have had international experience as part of their education have a broader, more global perspective of their the subject that they then take on to their professional lives”.

The programme will be funded by the UK and Indian Governments as part of Phase 3 of the UK-India Education Research Initiative and delivered by the British Council, Universities UK International and EdCIL in India.