Road Show: Germany Wooes Indian Students

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New Delhi: : Its now the turn of Germany to enter the international educational market aggressively. A special task force has been set up by the Ministry of Education and Research to intensify efforts to woo international students. The India initiative is being set rolling with education fairs between November 16-27 in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. Offices have also been opened in Chennai and Mumbai to tap potential students and offer the necessary counselling.

Says Ms Hannelore Bossman, director, German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD) Regional Office, ‘‘German higher educational institutions offer excellent program mes in a variety of disciplines at internationally recognised level, specially in engineering and natural sciences, humanities and law, where the medium of instruction is English. Since higher education is also mainly Govt-funded, there is no tuition fee except for MBAs and some PG courses. Students need mainly maintainance costs to see them through.’’ This on average amounts to roughly 625 Euro a month or 7500 Euro annually.

Seventy per cent of visa applications in India come from the south, since the interest in technical and science subjects is higher there, she adds. In contrast, students from the north prefer management subjects. An MBA costs around 10,000 Euro. International students form around 180,000 of the total 1.8 million students population in Germany. In 2001 there were 2008 Indian students in the country, up from 609 from 1990.

In order to support the initiative, the German government has also eased visa provi- sions for students and relaxed terms for part-time working. Students from January 2003 would be able to work 180 days a year, up from the earlier 20 hours a week or 90 days a year, without a work permit. The compulsory financial guarantee has also been reduced from the earlier 5 year period to around 5000 to 6000 euro. Employment opportunities are also being offered. Where earlier students had to return after completing their course, they now have a one-year period to look for employment.

The relaxation of rules are a part of the Govt’s recognition of the need for a regulation on how to integrate highly qualified work force into the system, which is a big move in a country that had no migration laws. Earlier, in 2000, Germany had introduced the Green Card system in order to make up for the shortfall in IT professionals within the country.