Don’t be surprised if you hear about a roadshow being held by M S University (MSU) at Africa or the Middle East. To arrest the declining number of foreign students at the campus, MSU much like foreign universities, will market itself abroad. The university has formulated a strategy to regain its cosmopolitan reputation. MSU will soon join hands with an Amman-based agency to increase its visibility abroad and attract more international students. The Jordan headquartered agency having offices in China, Malaysia and Egypt will take up its first Indian assignment from MSU.
“We already have a policy to grant admissions to foreign students under foreign students’ quota of ten percent. This quota is over and above the existing seats of regular and self-finance courses offered by various faculties of our university but due to procedural problems international students are not being able to fully utilize the seats. Now, our office of international affairs (OIA) has been assigned the task to increase presence of foreign students at our campus,” MSU vice-chancellor professor Yogesh Singh said. Presently, a foreign student aspiring to take admission at MSU has to first get a visitor’s visa and physically appear at the campus. Later such students have to again apply for a student visa. MSU wants to clear all such decks making admission of foreign students a smooth affair.
“The International Center for University Services (ICUS) has proposed that it will carry out the admission procedure and the formalities such as applying for eligibility certificate, submission of admission forms and payment of fees before arrival of international students from the targeted countries. It will also organize the India student visa for the international students of the targeted countries,” director of OIA at MSU professor Sharad Bansal said.
Interestingly, ICUS will also pay a sum of Rs 5,000 per application to MSU’s OIA as processing fees. It targets to bring international students from countries including Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon,Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iran, Yamane, UAE, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Palestine to MSU. “ICUS is hopeful that nearly 150 international students will take admission at MSU in next academic year and that number will go up to 300 in a span of next three years,” said Bansal.
From a time when it flaunted a couple of hundred foreign students, the figure of foreign students enrolled at MSU has stagnated in last couple of years. At present, there are around 60 foreign students enrolled with MSU. The agency will not only advertise on behalf of MSU in target countries, but it will also provide intelligence/police clearance/no crime certificate for individual students from the originating countries.
While there will be no financial liability on MSU, the existing eligibility norms of admission will not be diluted. The agency will move applications of those candidates for admission whose degrees are recognized by the International Association of Universities (IAU) – the list approved by UNESCO, the Association of African Universities, the Association of Indian Universities and the European University Association.
