In a bid to attract foreign students to Indian universities and colleges, Finance Minister on Friday announced the ‘Study in India’ programme in her maiden budget speech.
According to union budget speech, top 25 per cent of foreign students will get a 100 per cent waiver for tuition fees and Rs 150 crore has been allocated for the Study in India scheme.
"India has the potential to become a higher education hub, I, therefore, propose to start the programme Study in India that will focus on bringing foreign students to India in our higher educational institutions. The regulatory systems in higher education will be reformed comprehensively to promote greater autonomy and to focus on the better academic outcome. Draft legislation for setting up of higher education commission of India would be presented in the year ahead," she said.
She also cited the new National Education Policy. "National Research Foundation to assimilate all research grants given by different ministries independent of each other," she added. Massive Open Online Courses through SWAYAM has been successful, she also said.
India's first full-time woman finance minister presented her maiden union budget at 11 am on July 5. Sitharaman reached the Parliament an hour ahead of time with the budget document folded in a red traditional cloth sealed with the government seal. Analysts and the media had predicted that her first budget will be focused on the middle class and the poor and that it will take the SoPs presented in the interim budget by Piyush Goyal in February further. Sitharaman has to deal with income tax exemption slabs, unemployment and form a pro-Janta budget with the added task of pulling the country out of a five year low. With former Education Minister Prakash Javadekar promising that the government will try its best to spend 6 per cent of the GDP on education and the PM stressing on the youth development and innovation, eyes are on Sitharaman's budget to bring the change.
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