25th January 2023: During a recent visit to India, Ian Crichton, CEO of Study Group – a leading international education provider – spoke about future global education opportunities for India, as the British headquartered company reported a 100 percent increase in Indian students enrolled on its international education programmes between 2020 and 2022 A further doubling in the number of students supported between 2022 and 2023 is also expected.
Highlighting current industry trends, the relevance of STEM courses emerged as a topic of discussion, noting high demand for STEM jobs.
Notably enrolments to Study Group’s American partner universities jumped up by 2.5 times in the last 12 months – an increase linked to STEM programme launches helping Indian students pursue their ambitions of studying cutting edge developments in AI, human-computer interaction, and VR.
International education for a better world
Looking beyond the numbers, Ian Crichton, Study Group CEO, spoke about the importance of international education for driving positive global collaboration, and the future role of India’s youth in addressing global challenges: “When we look across the globe, we see problems that go far beyond national boundaries, demanding global solutions. To survive, and thrive, we will need a talented future generation able to think in a connected way and understand the perspectives of the rest of the world. For this, we need international education. Last year 1.09 million Indian students travelled overseas to study in 85 countries, and it is our ambition to help even more Indian students participate and succeed in global education this year.”
India-UK opportunity
During the conference, Study Group highlighted future opportunities for Indian students to study in the UK, predicting a 100 percent increase in enrolment numbers for 2023.
Karan Lalit, Study Group Regional Director, India, noted: “We’re excited to see that Indian students have recently overtaken Chinese nationals as the largest group of foreign students studying in the UK. At Study Group we have a very wide-ranging portfolio of the best of British universities, some old, some new. What they have in common is that they’re all welcoming Indian students.”
India as a global education partner and provider
Study Group also put a spotlight on India’s future role as a global education provider, noting that it is already home to many internationally recognised and highly ranked universities, with more expected to follow. Crichton observed: “Over the last 25 years Study Group has enabled hundreds of thousands of Indians to access the world’s best universities in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand but looking ahead, I want us to be bringing students from these same markets into India’s higher education institutions. 75 years ago, India was just beginning its journey as an independent nation. Today, it is home to superb universities and the global institutions of the future are as likely to be in Hyderabad, Delhi or Chennai as London, Oxford and Cambridge.”
Future investment
In a bid to expand its India operations, Study Group is strengthening its roots in Southern and Eastern India including Kerala, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana following notable spikes in demand from students in these regions. In 2022 the city of Hyderabad witnessed a 135 percent rise in student enrolments, and Study Group expects this upward trend to continue across all these growth regions in 2023.
