In bid to attract more Indian students, UK increases scholarships

KOLKATA: The number of Indian students has decreased in the last few years in the UK, following a clamp down on bogus colleges. The British government will woo Indian students by increasing scholarships, a British High Commission official said on Friday.

“If you compare the figures with what was there three to four years ago, the numbers have come down. It is because we clamped down heavily on bogus colleges. Now we are maintaining excellence and only bona-fide institutes are left,” Andrew Soper, minister counsellor (political and press) of the British High Commission told reporters in Kolkata.

He said the inflow of students from India had stabilised now and that the UK is expecting a gradual increase.

On the scholarship count, Soper said under the ‘Great Britain’ campaign, the UK governmnent was offering 59 undergraduate and 232 postgraduate scholarships across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In the last couple of years, the number of scholarships under the UK’s flagship Chevening program had increased four-fold, to Rs 25 crore.

Soper also said efforts had been made to ease the visa process, with every 9 out of 10 students getting it. “If you have got an admission into a UK university, you will get a visa,” the official said.

Click here for more…