IND-SAT To Be Conducted In Asia, Africa

India should be a preferred destination for higher education, said Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Finance Minister on February 1 while presenting the Union Budget. To bring foreign students to Indian campuses, the FM has proposed to start an IND-SAT exam under the 'Study in India' scheme. This will enable evaluation and study of students from Asia and Africa who seek admission in the country, she said. 

“Under the ‘Study in India’ programme, an IND-SAT is proposed to be held in Asian and African countries for benchmarking foreign candidates who receive scholarships for studying in Indian higher education centres,” she said.

Reacting on the proposed IND-SAT, Ishari K Ganesh, Chancellor of Vels University said, “The move towards encouraging higher education in India through ‘Study in India’ initiative is highly commendable. By introducing ‘Ind-SAT’ exam for Asian and African students, India can emerge as a destination for quality higher education.”

The FM also stated that steps will be taken to enable sourcing External Commercial Borrowings and Foreign Direct Investment to ensure greater inflow of finance to attract talented teachers, innovate and build better labs.

“Though the fund allocation for the education sector is still not adequate, we appreciate Govt's decision of welcoming ECBs and FDIs in the education sector. The move has the potential to bring a positive change as it will help in addressing various shortcomings that have been created due to lack of funds, such as insufficient teacher training programs, a dearth of advanced teaching facilities, libraries or labs, etc.,” said Dr. Sandeep Pachpande, Chairman, Audyogik Shikshan Mandal (ASM) Group.

Keeping the global demand for teachers, medical and para-medical staff, Sitharaman informed that the country will start a bridge programme to tap these sectors and fill out the employment gap. She said, “Special bridge courses may be designed jointly by the Ministries of Health and Skill Development along with professional bodies to match the employer’s standards as well as meet the language requirements of various countries.”

In order to meet the requirement of qualified medical doctors, the minister proposed to attach a medical college to an existing district hospital in PPP mode. “Viability gap funding will be made available to the States that fully allow the facilities of the hospital to the medical college and provide land at a concession. The Government will also encourage large hospitals with sufficient capacity to offer resident doctors DNB/FNB courses under the National Board of Examinations,” Sitharaman said.

Reacting to the boost in medical sector, Gerald Jaideep, CEO of Medvarsity Online Ltd said, “The 2020 budget allocation for healthcare is perceptibly moderate with a vision of some good opportunities for the medical fraternities and some cons that need to be addressed.”

“The PPP model to deal with the shortage of doctors as proposed in the budget-2020 is going to be substantially beneficial to the Indian healthcare sector. The tie-up of medical colleges with district hospitals for increasing the number of doctors that provide care to the patients will enhance the overall quality of the Indian healthcare ecosystem as this will lead to a greater number of skilled doctors in the Indian medical fraternity,” he added.

A National Police University and a National Forensic Science University have also been proposed in the domain of policing science, forensic science, cyber-forensics etc. in the Budget 2020-21.

Applauding the government for emphasizing on the cyber security skills, Rakesh Kharwal, Managing Director, India/South Asia AND ASEAN, Cyberbit said, “Great Opportunity to setup Bridge Courses on Cybersecurity Skilling to meet the 4 million global shortage of skilled cyber people under Skill India and Apprenticeship Courses in Financial Budget 2020. The government has highlighted the essence of skills sets for which various knowledge translation clusters for emerging technologies like Analytics, IoT, AI, and Cybersecurity will be setup.”