E-Paper
AU becoming popular among foreign students
ATTAINING THE coveted Central status has made the Allahabad University (AU) quite popular among foreign students wishing to pursue higher education in India. For the very first time, as many as 25 students from Libya have applied to AU for admission to postgraduate and PhD courses of the varsity for the academic session 2006-07.
ATTAINING THE coveted Central status has made the Allahabad University (AU) quite popular among foreign students wishing to pursue higher education in India. For the very first time, as many as 25 students from Libya have applied to AU for admission to postgraduate and PhD courses of the varsity for the academic session 2006-07.
All the Libyan students have applied for admission to various departments of the science faculty and have approached the varsity through the New Delhi-based Educational Consultants India Limited. The applications are now being considered by the AU authorities.In a letter sent to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development on Friday, AU’s International Students Advisor Prof NR Farooqui has informed the Centre that leaving aside these fresh admission applications, at present there are just 26 foreign students pursuing their undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD courses at the varsity, including 10 in the arts faculty, eight in the commerce faculty, six in the law faculty and two in the science faculty.However, AU, in the letter, has claimed that it has no knowledge of any children of Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) or wards of Indian workers employed in the Gulf and the South-East Asian countries who applied for admission to AU for the 2005-06 academic session.It is to be recalled that the MHRD had sought detailed information regarding the number of seats of foreign students, number and origin of such students along with their department-wise break-up from all the varsities including the AU latest by April 28 through a fax superscribed “Most Important” and dated April 26 that was received at AU that very day.
The fax was in response to the Centre’s recent decision to reserve 5 per cent of the already set 15 per cent super-numerary seats meant for the foreign students for the children of Indian workers employed in the Gulf and South East Asian countries in all the universities.
The government has already permitted all the universities to create up to 15 per cent super numerary seats in the educational institutions for foreign students including Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs). Super numerary seats are those which are over and above the fixed sanctioned seats in an institution but where the numbers are not fixed and vary from year to year depending up on the number of eligible applicants subject to a prescribed maximum.
In the fax, sent to AU by MHRD deputy secretary RD Sahay, AU had been instructed to provide a detailed note about the measures taken so far by the university to attract foreign students including PIOs in India.The MHRD had also asked AU to also provide information about the extent to which the facility has been availed of at AU indicating the total number of super numerary seats created department-wise and the position of actually filled seats along with separate details about PIOs and children of Indian workers employed in Gulf and SE Asia.
