Mumbai: India sends a significant number of students to the international higher education markets. Indian students mainly choose higher educational institutes based in the USA, European countries and Australia for overseas career destinations. In 2015, India registered a 29% rise in sending number students to the USA universities and institutes. A total number of 132,888 students took admission in the various USA higher learning institutes, the second highest market for the USA.
Till now there has no formal data and record of Indian students studying abroad. Now , the Government of India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has taken initiatives to start keeping record of students who are studying/planning to study abroad. Through MADAD, integrated citizen centric portal for Indians staying overseas, students studying /planning to study abroad can register their names and can lodge complaints in any grievance on any specific problems.
Students can register as MADAD user if they have any grievance related to consular services offered by Indian Missions/Posts abroad or are an Indian student studying/planning to study abroad. MADAD enables online logging and tracking of grievances, and submission of course/contact details of students.
Till now under MADAD platform, 40,745 users have registered out of which 3,779 are students. Here, students can register their profiles with overseas contact details, course details, programme offering learning institutes and other details. Indian students studying academic face multiple problems spanning from malpractices and frauds committed by educational institutes to cultural and racial attacks.
There have been such incidents in the various parts of the world, which have made it difficult for students to visit such overseas destinations. On this background, the initiatives of Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV) Division under the Ministry of External Affairs are laudable. The mobile app versions of Madad is also available on Android, iOS, and Windows platforms.
The MEA said that the information shared with the module by the students shall not be disclosed to third parties. Compilation of the data will facilitate better connectivity of Indian students with Indian Embassies/Missions abroad in case of need.
The official website for the MADAD platform is given below:
