'25,000 UK students to be brought to India in 5 yrs'

Coimbatore, February 13: The British Council aims to bring 25,000 UK students to India over the next five years for various placements in the country under its new 'Generation UK' programme, a top official said here today.

The objective was to promote India as a destination to gain study and work experience, offer mutually beneficial placements that would give students the chance to develop employability skills, Suchita Gokarn, Head of Education Promoton-India, British Council, said.

Besides, this would support internationalisation of Indian companies and academic institutions, she said, adding that the first batch of 2,000 students will arrive in India and work and teach in the country this year. About 200 UK students are coming to India to gain experience at present, she said.

Suchita, who was here to launch Council's Education UK exhibition tomorrow and to announce the Great Britain Scholarships-India 2015, said it would entail 401 partial scholarship awards worth 1.51 million pounds on offer for courses like Engineering, Law and Business, Art and Design and Bioscience.

Stating that the scholarships are tenable for September 2015 and January 2016 intake, she said 57 UK institutions across England, Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland were participating in the program. Students from 16 nationalities are pursuing their studies in UK and there was absolutely no fear of any racism issue, Suchita said.

PTI