Nani Gopal Mahanta, Academic/Education Advisor to the Assam Government and Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science and Director of Global Studies Centre at Gauhati University says: “With the opening of Act East Policy, several opportunities have sprung up. The policy is not just related to trade and commerce, as is widely known, but also for people to people contact. We’ve had three batches of international students studying in our university so far.”Mahanta further adds that because of the Covid-19 situation, things are currently going slow, but he is quite hopeful that as the situation improves, more students from across the globe would show interest.”While we’re doing our best to promote our education and culture, the government needs to provide scholarship opportunities and perks to international students, like is done in other parts of India. When foreign students come and study in the North East region, they become ambassadors for our culture. This way we could reach out to a wider mass,” he said.According to statistics, most of the foreign students come from Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh Africa, Bhutan, Nigeria, Lao, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Iran, with many of them seeking the B-Tech engineering degree, and a large number of many others taking the BBA degrees. Other popular undergraduate courses for foreign students are Pharmacy, Medicine, Computer Applications, Fashion, Sociology, Dentistry and Nursing.”I would prefer my kids studying here in Assam because in the present times our state is at par with the other states in terms of education and infrastructure. Many good names in the educational scenario offer courses from engineering to management, allied health sciences, humanities, medicine, law and more. The hostels have modern facilities and the overall development of students is a focus area. The placement records of the institutions give an insight to their profile. This makes it a lot easier for parents to choose the right place of education for their children. Above all, I feel that studying at one’s own place saves unnecessary hassles caused by issues like travel, food, homesickness, and language problem,” says Mr Roy, a parent of a student learning at Assam down town University.”The consistent efforts of AdtU to be at par with the global standards in education has resulted in higher inflow of students from other states like Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kashmir, Chennai, etc apart from the north eastern states to our university. AdtU offers world-class experience in terms of campus life, placements and industry exposure,” added Narayan Chandra Talukdar, Vice Chancellor of Assam down town University.As winds of change blow through institutions of higher learning in North East India, stakeholders stress on giving the region the attention it deserves to be transformed into a center for educational tourism.
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