Not so distant- Foreign Education

Ashna Kukreja, a student from Delhi’s GD Goenka school, did decently well in her 12th standard board exams but not good enough to get a course and a college of her choice in Delhi University. She turned her attention abroad with the help of a foreign education agent and Rs 12 lakh fee. Ashna is now studying business administration in United Kingdom. Education agents have undoubtedly made the route to an international education rather easy some would say too easy from doing your research to fixing interviews and even writing your statement of purpose. Today more than your marks, agents are proving to be the big ticket to degree abroad. An office in Delhi receives hundreds of students a week, all you have to do is walk in and specify the country and course of your choice. Even consultants helping you get admission into a foreign university admit that their criterion for taking on a student is rather low. They say it is easier to get admission abroad than to a good college in India. “We have a certain percentage. Student should be at least 55% to get good university and he should be with good TOEFL/IELTS score,” said Monica Sarang, Education Consultant. “I had tried in Delhi and given some entrance tests but marks required were too high, on the other hand a person came from Cardiff University and interviewed me. He saw my overall personality, that’s what matters to them,” said a student. Most agents are affiliated to foreign universities in some way or the other. While some charge students a fixed fee others provide free help and take a ten to fifteen percent cut of the tuition fee for each student they send to a University. But what’s common among all of them is the amount of handholding they provide to a student from preparing a statement of purpose (SOP), to writing, or as they say editing a student’s essay which forms the basis of their admission. “They helped me write my SOP, I didn’t know anything, they told me everything, which university is good for me, which is not,” said student Manish Bansal. Foreign universities too are more than happy to admit these students. For them international students are the most lucrative source of money. An average college in England or US charges a foreign student double to 6 times the tuition fee of its domestic student. Little wonder the number of Indians studying abroad is increasing. The number of Indian students enrolled in American colleges is up by 10, 000 students every year. Currently standing at almost 80,000. In UK, in 2002, the number of visas issued to Indian students almost doubled in span of one year. Rich kids with an average report card never had it this good with admission in Indian colleges becoming more and more competitive every year. The trend of falling back on a foreign university as a second option is only becoming stronger.

(Beverly White & Nandita Suneja)