THE NUMBER OF INDIAN students starting university courses in the UK has continued to fall after almost halving over two years, according to a new report. A survey of more than 100 institutions by Universities UK (UUK) shows that despite growth in overall overseas recruitment in the latest academic year, enrolments appear to have further dropped from some countries.
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Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows the number of Indian students starting courses in the UK fell by 49 percent in the two years to 2012-13 from 23,985 to 12,280. Over the same period, the number of students recruited from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia dropped by 38 and 35 percent respectively. Growing recruitment from China, Malaysia and Hong Kong means the overall decline in the number of first-year students from overseas over the two years was only 1.3 percent, from 174,225 to 171,910.
There’s also a 10 percent drop in enrolment in science, engineering, technology and maths courses over the two years, which UUK says is driven by declining numbers of people taking courses that are traditionally popular with students from the Indian subcontinent, such as computer science.
Paul Blomfield, Labour MP and member of the Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, says the “further significant fall” in recruitment from India has created “real risks” for UK universities as they may become “over dependent on specific countries that are developing their own universities, like China”.
At an event at the Conservative Party Conference in September, Nicola Dandridge, the UUK chief executive, repeated calls for students to be removed from the government’s net migration target. “We do not want to lose our leading position as a destination for the increasing numbers of students who want a higher education overseas,” she told Times Higher Education.
(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)