Nigerian students looking to advance their academic pursuit in any field of their choice need not look further because over 12 Indian universities and institutions of higher learning recently visited Nigeria to create awareness among Nigerian students on the education opportunities in India at 2013 Indian Education Summit held in Lagos.
Mahesh Sachdev, Indian high commissioner to Nigeria, while declaring the summit open, said that the first edition of the expo held in 2011, had an electrifying effect on Nigerian stakeholders such that over 1,200 Nigerians went to India to study in 2012.
According to him, there is expectation that the growth will accelerate further this year because Nigerians are now discovering the attractiveness of Indian education.
“With nearly 550 universities and 17 million students, India today has largest English-Language speaking higher education system. Apart from offering Nigerians opportunities to study in Indian institutions, there is need for the Indian institutions to engage their Nigerian counterparts in a purposeful discussions on other possibilities like inter-institutional cooperation, faculty exchange and joint ventures to enhance Nigerian education system,” Sachdev suggested.
Samiullah Khan, delegate from SRM University in Chennai, India, which is a private and number one university in India that currently has over 500 students from Nigeria studying in the college, said that the cost of education in India is reasonable and affordable compared to what obtains in United Kingdom and the United States of America.
According to Khan, Indian education system is a good model that can be replicated in Nigeria’s education system. “The change that we had in Indian education system started with the IT revolution in India such that about 40 percent of Microsoft employees are from India,” he added.
On SRM University, he said that SRM University is well-known for the quality of students that trained in areas like Engineering, Information Technology and Medicines courses and other fields. “Due to the practical knowledge that we impact on our students, SRM, which accepts West African Examination Council (WAEC) and other certificates that are accepted in Nigerian higher institutions, has over 170 companies that employ their students six month before their graduation.”
Also speaking on the Indian education system, Anita Patankar, delegate from Symbiosis International University, a school known for the quality of students produced in Law and Management courses, attributed the growth of Indian education system to the need to create technocrats and sound managers in the country.
She said that India is a country that had pockets of excellence people and this enabled the country to take up the opportunity, when the Indian government through its privatisation policy, opened up the country’s education system for the private sector to come, and according to her, this brought about a tremendous breakthrough in the education system.
Testifying to the quality of Indian education system, Leo Stan Ekeh, chairman, Zinox Computers, who is also an Indian trained IT professional, described India as a realistic economy that is waiting to happen to the world.
According to him, Nigerians are wasting resources to study in UK and US without being employed at the end of the day, but in India, the student that graduates with the right knowledge, becomes every company’s target. Education in India has context, cost effective and it helps students to acquire the right knowledge.
KELECHI EWUZIE
