HIGHLIGHTS:

• Indian students are being added to US’s travel exemption list
• Canada has launched an additional 90k PR’s early this month
• UK and India have come together to sign a Migration and Mobility Partnership

Hyderabad: Hyderabad-based overseas educational consultants say that they have observed that about 94 per cent students have become more keento study abroad in 2021 compared to that of 2020. Amidst the pandemic, students from Hyderabad are targeting UK and Canada as their primary educational destinations this year. Explaining the major reasons behind the spike for overseas education, an educational consultant Arush from CanAusedu says, "Primarily, this is a result of governments in the UK, US, and other developed countries, opening up their higher education and immigration policies, and communicating is more welcoming than ever before. The pandemic has changed how countries think about economic growth and the education sector that is inclusive at the top of their charts now."

"UK, USA and Canada countries have come up with numerous pro-student policies in the last year, Universities are supporting International students by providing waivers and relaxation on various requirements, in fact as per the latest development, Indian students are being added to US's travel exemption list. Foreign countries are also providing access to early vaccinations for overseas students along with opportunities in different streams. All these aspects are contributing to the rate of students looking for overseas education," said Vishal Kumar from another overseas consultancy in Panjagutta.
 

Supporting the observations by Hyderabad-based educational consultants, A survey conducted by Leverage Edu, revealed that 94 per cent of Indian students were keener to travel and study abroad this year compared to last year. The survey was conducted amongst users that registered on the Leverage Edu platform in the last 5 months. "Around 58 per cent students said they had made their plans within the last 3 months itself, while 36 per cent said they had these plans in place since long and executing on now and most of them were planning since a year and due to lockdown and Covid pandemic they are planning this time to fly anyway," said Akshay Chaturvedi, founder & CEO, Leverage Edu.

"UK and India have come together to sign a Migration and Mobility Partnership and Canada had launched an additional 90k PR's early this month and these moves are the perfect cocktail in some sense. There were concerns over visa appointments for a while, given metro cities were in lockdown, but they have largely eased off. The next 2-3 academic intakes are going to be quite the rebound", he added.

Anmol, a student from Gachibowli, when asked about his motivation to go to the UK this year said, "I chose better healthcare infrastructure as one of the key reasons to study and look at opportunities abroad as I have to stay in quarantine for 10 days, the healthcare system is good and vaccination is being done, so yeah I am confident to travel there this year." "I have been planning this for 2 years now and it feels comfortable to make the final move now. I am very excited, and I am just waiting to take my IELTS", said Shiva, another student who is planning to go to Canada for his studies this year. Research Highlights ♦ 75per cent of students prefer UK for education. Canada and US were chosen by 13 per cent and 9per cent students respectively ♦ 60per cent of students were looking to fund their studies through education loan ♦ Management/business courses remained the top choice of discipline for students gathering 35per cent votes with Engineering at second place with 18per cent votes. Data Science/Analytics also made its mark with 9per cent of students going for the course this year