The query is now not if India can appeal to world expertise, however whether or not it could actually construct the circumstances to take action at scale—with care and imaginative and prescient. Completed proper, India may emerge because the College of the International South, the place ambition meets entry and studying meets relevance…write Gurucharan Gollerkeri

As world geopolitics reshapes the flows of expertise, information, and affect, India stands at a pivotal second. The upper schooling panorama is shifting.

For many years, the educational aspirations of scholars from Asia, Africa, and Latin America have been formed by a Western gaze. America, the UK, Australia, and components of Europe have dominated worldwide scholar mobility.

However cracks have begun to seem on this mannequin. The hovering price of schooling, tightening visa regimes, cultural frictions, and rising xenophobia in some Western international locations are prompting college students and school alike to rethink their decisions.

In distinction, India affords a singular promise – a democratic, English-speaking, culturally numerous nation with decrease prices and enhancing educational infrastructure. In response to the QS World College Rankings 2026, 54 Indian establishments are listed, with a number of IITs and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) main the pack. Notably, India is now house to 10 establishments among the many world high 500 – a determine that stood at simply 5 a decade in the past. India’s larger schooling system presents inexpensive excellence from a comparative perspective.

The worth proposition is putting when seen by way of the lens of affordability. In response to the OECD, the common annual price of tuition for an undergraduate diploma within the US for worldwide college students is round $30,000 (excluding dwelling bills).

Within the UK, it ranges from £15,000 to £25,000. In distinction, tuition at India’s premier institutes, resembling IITs or central universities, ranges from Rs 2 to three lakh every year – roughly $2,000 to $3,500. Dwelling prices additionally favour India. A scholar in Bengaluru or Delhi can anticipate to spend $4,000-$5,000 yearly on lodging, meals, transport, and incidentals – a fraction of the $15,000-$20,000 annual dwelling price in main Western cities. For a scholar from Nairobi, Dhaka, Jakarta, or Lagos, this distinction just isn’t marginal – it’s transformative.

A number of Indian establishments are a part of world analysis partnerships, host Nobel Laureates and Rhodes Students amongst alumni, and contribute considerably to world information manufacturing in STEM, administration, social sciences, and more and more, AI and digital public infrastructure.

A quiet analysis revolution is underway. India has begun to make tangible strides in analysis output and affect. Between 2012 and 2022,

its share of world analysis publications almost doubled, from 3.1% to five.7%,

based on Scopus. In key sectors resembling renewable vitality, synthetic intelligence, prescribed drugs, and supplies science, Indian establishments are actually among the many high ten producers of peer-reviewed papers.

The quotation affect – lengthy seen as a weak spot – can be enhancing. Whereas the Discipline-Weighted Quotation Affect (FWCI) for India was 0.77 in 2012 (in comparison with the world common of 1), it rose to 0.95 by 2022, approaching parity with the worldwide common. Institutes resembling IISc, TIFR, and a few IITs already exceed the worldwide FWCI common in a number of disciplines.

This progress has been matched by the latest coverage and regulatory reforms. India’s New Schooling Coverage (NEP) 2020 explicitly envisions the nation changing into a worldwide research vacation spot. It requires internationalisation of curricula, credit score switch frameworks, twin and joint diploma programmes, and the opening of Indian campuses overseas. In flip, world universities are actually permitted to determine department campuses in India and a number of other of them are doing so.

The College Grants Fee (UGC) has additionally rolled out a unified Educational Financial institution of Credit, the Nationwide Digital College, and revised norms for international college recruitment and scholar consumption. For instance, establishments within the high 500 world rankings are actually eligible to determine campuses in India with regulatory fast-tracking.

India and the International South have a shared ethos. India’s distinctive energy lies in its socio-cultural affinity with a lot of the International South. In contrast to many Western nations, India doesn’t function from a place of dominance or conditionality.

Its growth expertise – of constructing establishments, extending literacy, increasing digital inclusion, and delivering public well being in advanced, numerous settings – is of direct relevance to the challenges confronted by international locations in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Furthermore, India’s latest successes in digital public items provide helpful studying for low- and middle-income international locations. Many of those improvements are being adopted throughout the International South, and Indian universities are well-positioned to show, analysis, and practice expertise in these domains.

A few of the non-public universities have already created globally benchmarked requirements of high quality. We should due to this fact replicate on the street forward and on what India should do to rework potential into actuality. India should act decisively on a number of fronts: Streamline visa insurance policies for college kids and visiting college from overseas, together with longer post-study work permits; Strengthen world branding and outreach by way of regional hubs, alumni networks, and digital platforms in Africa and Southeast Asia; Enhance campus infrastructure, scholar assist companies, and worldwide scholar housing to reinforce the standard of expertise; Spend money on college growth and interdisciplinary analysis centres, with higher funding for arts, regulation, and public coverage; Forge South-South educational partnerships, providing co-branded programmes with universities in Africa, ASEAN, and Latin America.

India must also think about instituting a International South Analysis Fellowship Programme that permits main students from rising economies to collaborate on educating and analysis in Indian universities – constructing mental solidarity throughout borders. The query is now not whether or not India can appeal to worldwide college students and school – it’s whether or not we’ll create enabling circumstances to take action at scale, with care, and with imaginative and prescient. If we get this proper, India may very effectively turn out to be the College of the International South – the place ambition meets entry, and studying meets relevance.

(The author is Director, College of Social Sciences and College of Legislation, Ramaiah College of Utilized Sciences)