WB-IITKGP-FOREIGN STUDENTS

220 foreign students apply at IIT Kharagpur for courses
    Kolkata, Jul 30 (PTI) As part of an initiative to
boost the presence of foreign students in its campus by
offering scholarships, IIT Kharagpur has received close to 220
applications from international students, for various degree
programmes this year.
    The acceptance rate of the international students in
various masters and doctoral degree programmes is about eight
per cent, of whom 11 students have already joined the
institute for the academic year starting 2019, an IIT KGP
statement said.
    "Internationalisation is a priority for our institute,
especially with the country making it a thrust area in the
recently announced budget.
    "Each international applicant goes through an
extremely rigorous evaluation process and I am very pleased
with the increasing number of excellent foreign students
coming into IIT Kharagpur in recent years, the statement
quoted Baidurya Bhattacharya, Dean, International Relations,
as saying.
    The institute has scholarship programmes funded by its
alumni, in addition to scholarships offered by the Indian
Council for Cultural Relations and MHRDs "Study in India".
    The institute received applications from SAARC
countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal,
Sri Lanka, two ASEAN countries - Vietnam, Laos, and two from
Latin America - Colombia, Venezuela, the statement said.
    Applications also came from African countries namely
Madagascar, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Rwanda,
Angola, Sudan, the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan, the
Pacific island of Fiji, Middle Eastern nations including Iran,
Syria, Palestine and Saudi Arabia, and Russia and South Korea.
    "The presence of international students in our
institute brings a fresh perspective to our classrooms and
labs and enriches our campus life. This global perspective is
going to benefit India in long run," Bhattacharya said.
In several countries, international students have to
pay higher fees for degree programmes. At IIT Kharagpur,
however, the international fees for most graduate degree
programmes are nominal, he said.
    The MTech programmes admitting foreign students this
semester include Aerospace Engineering, Biotechnology,
Chemical Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering,
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Mechanical
Engineering.
    The doctoral programme in the School of Medical
Science and Technology and the MBA programme in the Vinod
Gupta School of Management, each got one international
admission in this semester.
    For non-degree programmes in 2019, till this date, the
institute has received 50 applications from the USA, Canada,
UK, Germany, France, Norway, Spain, Japan, Rwanda and Iran.
"Of the 50, 13 students were accepted through various
funding programmes," the statement said. PTI SUS
MM MM

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from a PTI feed.)