220 foreign students apply at IIT-Kharagpur for courses

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has received close to 220 applications from foreign students for various degree programmes of whom 11 students have already joined for the current academic year, an official said on Monday.

“The acceptance rate of the international students in various masters and doctoral degree programmes is about 8 per cent of whom 11 students have joined the institute for the academic year starting 2019,” the official said.

Foreign students have been enrolled for MTech programmes like 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 got one international admission each for this semester.

IIT-Kharagpur has it’s own scholarship programmes funded by its alumni in addition to scholarships offered by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and central government’s ‘Study in India’ programme.

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 and Venezuela.

Also, applications came from a large number of African countries namely Madagascar, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Angola, Sudan, the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan, the Pacific island nation of Fiji, Middle Eastern nations including Iran, Syria, Palestine and Saudi Arabia, and Russia and South Korea.

Earlier this year IIT-Kharagpur also launched the Asoke Dey Sarkar International Program for providing funds to students from SAARC countries.

The onstitute’s flagship funding program for internationalisation, Gopal Rajgarhia International Programme, entered its fourth year in 2019 and has made funding international masters and doctoral students its top priority.

“For non-degree programs in 2019 until now the institute has received 50 applications from the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Norway, Spain, Japan, Rwanda, and Iran. 13 students were accepted through various funding programs,” he said.

Predicting an increase in the number of foreign students at IIT Kharagpur, Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Associate Dean, International Relations said: “While we have seen international students enrol for studies at IIT-Kharagpur in the past, the government’s new policy of internationalisation will boost our efforts and enable us to reach out to a larger number of international aspirants. It may be anticipated that the number of international students on campus will only increase in the coming years.”