Over 8.94 lakh students left to study abroad in 2023: Education ministry tells Lok Sabha

NEW DELHI: 8,94,783 students went abroad for higher education last year, the union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Lok Sabha in a written reply. More than 3.60 lakh students have gone overseas as of July 20 this year.

As per the response of the education minister, the Bureau of Immigration (BoI), Ministry of Home Affairs maintains the departure and arrival data of Indians.

“Studies abroad are a matter of individual will and choice. Moreover, there are no restrictions on cross-border student mobility, which is contingent on a variety of factors such as affordability, access to bank loans, exposure to foreign societies, aptitude for particular branch of studies etc. Purpose of Indians going abroad for higher education is captured manually based either on their verbal disclosure at the time of immigration clearance or the type of visa obtained for the destination country,” the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader replied to the question on the reasons of student migration.

Study Abroad: Last years’ data

The union minister further informed that the government has taken several initiatives to improve access to higher education. As a result, the number of universities has increased to 1,168 in 2021-22 from 760 in 2014-15 while the number of colleges has increased to 45,473 in 2021-22 from 38,498 in 2014-15.

The total enrolment in higher education has increased to nearly 4.33 crore in 2021-22 from 3.42 crore in 2014-15.The female enrolment has increased to 2.07 crore in 2021-22 from 1.57 crore in 2014-15, he added.

To improve the quality of education, the government has taken measures such as adoption of the National Credit Framework (NCF), Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) platform, online courses, professor of practice, National Apprenticeship Training Scheme, joint and dual degree programmes, foreign university campuses.

Also read Study Abroad in 2024: What are the new student visa requirements for top destinations?

According to Dharmendra Pradhan, these initiatives have brought transformational changes in the higher educational standards in India leading to improvement in ranking such as the number of Indian HEIs in global top 500 increasing to 11 in 2025 as compared to 7 in 2015 QS World University Rankings.

“India stands as one of the world’s most rapidly expanding research centers as our research output surged by an impressive 54%, which is more than double of the global average in the QSSubject Rankings 2024,” he further added in his reply.