In order to increase the number of Indian students in the UK universities, the UK-India knowledge collaboration is suggested.
Jo Johnson, Former Universities Minister, who leads the Natural partners: building a comprehensive UK-India knowledge partnership, has recommended a 'number of reforms', to encourage sustainability and competition in the UK’s international education sector.
According to the latest reports, the UK government has been suggested to partner up with India as one of the main objectives of the proposed free trade agreement being discussed by both countries.
The report is a collaboration between the Policy Institute of King’s College London and Harvard Kennedy School, which focuses on doing away with fraud and abuse of the visa system along with working on reducing the dependency on China for international education by multiplying the number of Indian students studying in the UK before the end of the current parliament term.
Jo Johnson said that the UK would have to move its universities and research bases with India more strategically, which could be implemented by making a 'comprehensive knowledge partnership' the feature of a UK-India free trade agreement post-Brexit.
As per the reports, the number of Indian students is significantly increasing in the UK even after years of decline, but they only represent less than 50% of the number of Chinese students.
The report has formulated five 'building blocks', to ensure the partnership, where the first one is the simplification of movement between institutions in both countries and mutual recognition of their credits and qualifications.
The second is migrating to India to the 'low-risk country list' and attracting a vast number of Indian students, after which the launch of a sector-backed loan funding programme for students from India was proposed along with promoting a balanced collaboration with more UK students in India, with the Turing Scheme's assistance.
Lastly, to promote “frontier science”, the report has suggested significantly- increased funding and assistance for collaborative research.
Further, the UK Visas and Immigration must adopt a similar approach to Canada’s Student Direct Scheme, which fastracks visa processing time for students proving their purchase of a Guaranteed Investment Certificate of CAD 10,000 from a recognised bank, Johnson added.
In the previous report, The study on India, 'The China question: handling risks and maximising advantages from partnership in higher education and research', also pointed out how people under 25 constitute more than 600 million people in India, which could be a priced source of economic growth.
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