NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 9: The number of international students admitted to IIT Bombay in the academic year 2017-18 had declined by nearly half. In 2016-17, nearly 100 foreign students were enrolled across different programmes offered at the institute. However, only 56 foreign students took admission in 2017-18, the official data from IITB’s proposal to the central government for the ‘Institute of Eminence’ status has revealed.
A total of sixteen and five students took admission in PG and PhD courses, respectively, in the current batch. In 2015-16, there were as many as 72 admissions in the above programmes.
Major chunk comprises postgraduate students
Most foreign students join IIT Bombay for postgraduate or PhD programme. A total of 22 overseas students enrolled for an M.Tech degree and seven for PhD in 2016. There were only two students for undergraduate programmes. For other project works, 69 students came to IITB. Last year, sixteen, four, five and 31 students enrolled for postgraduate, undergraduate, PhD courses and other project works, respectively. Most of the students are from Japan, Germany, France, Canada, the US and Singapore.
IIT Bombay plans to earn Rs. 1 crore annually
Every year, the institute earns nearly Rs. 41 lakh from overseas students on an average. It now plans to earn Rs. 1 core per annum in the next five years. Being an Institute of Eminence, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), can now fix and charge the fees for overseas students.
Fewer seats for overseas students due to high number of domestic students
The institute shared that seats left for foreign students are few because the number of domestic students applying for PG and PhD programmes is quite high. “The reason that the numbers dropped last year may be because there were intermittent technical issues with some of the application web portals during the January intake (these are not IIT-B websites). These problems were rectified. Additionally, we are working closely with Indian government programs and have our own strategic plan to enhance international students on campus,” Swati Patankar, Dean of International Relations, has been quoted as saying to a national daily.