The chancellor of Oxford University, Lord Patten, is to visit India next month in a bid to tempt the country's brightest students to shun the US and study in the UK.
In an interview with the Financial Times today, the former governor of Hong Kong, who became chancellor in 2003, said Oxford had to "fight very hard" to compete with the American ivy league colleges, which are better funded than the top UK universities. According to the FT, Lord Patten will visit Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi, calling on Oxford alumni and discussing how more money can be raised for bursaries for Indian students.
He said universities that seriously wanted to attract Asian students, particularly those from China and India, could not do so without a "properly thought-through strategy". "Globalisation doesn't end at the Thames Valley, we have to fight very hard to keep our position in the world league table to stay up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT," he said.
Lord Patten said there were about 17,000 Indian students in Britain, compared to nearly 80,000 in the US. Oxford had twice as many Chinese as Indian students. "One of the problems in India is that we have a rather conservative, stuffy image. People don't realise the flexibility and modernity of our courses."
Universities are increasingly relying on overseas students - with the higher fees they pay - for funding. Non-EU students can be charged up to five times more than their UK and EU counterparts. The international student market is estimated to be worth £10bn to the UK economy each year. The number of Chinese students studying abroad had been steadily rising over the past few years, but figures published by the university admissions service, Ucas, last September revealed the number enrolling for courses at UK universities this year was down by more than 20%. The decrease was a cause for alarm among vice-chancellors, who blamed on higher student visa fees.
The late Rajiv Gandhi, the last of the Nehru-Gandhi clan to be prime minister of India, had a quip for why so many of his country's bright, young people were leaving home for the west. His pithy reply to critics was "better brain drain than brain in the drain". It seems today's whiz kids agree.
Forsaking their own often tatty universities for the ivory towers of the richer world, Indian students are now the world's most wanted. Eager and smart and thus quite unlike the surly mobs of the west, Indian students can now be found in the front rows of lecture halls from California to Canberra. This zeal for education, and the ability to pay for it, have not gone unnoticed. Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice have been wooing groups of Indian students, patiently answering questions from bespectacled teenagers. China, which has only 800 Indian students, is desperate for more, flashing cash and scholarships for physics lectures in Mandarin.
Wearing the mortar board and gown of Oxford University, Chris Patten has this week joined the queue of suitors, bemoaning the fact that not enough Indian students are coming to study among the dreaming spires. There are only 17,000 Indian students in Britain, compared with 80,000 in the US. "We have to fight hard to keep our position in the world league table," he said. The problem, he insists, is one of image: India views its former colonial master as "a conservative, stuffy" place.
There is some truth in the accusation. News stories in India portray America as a land of unbridled opportunity, where Indian scientists and engineers have made it big (the estimated net worth of emigrants to the US from the Indian Insitute of Technology alone is $30bn). Britain carries with it the baggage of its imperial past: a class-bound society in which where you come from still matters more than where you are going.
Yet Patten the former politician also knows that lurking behind this apparent challenge is an opportunity: America's position in Indian hearts is not unassailable. Last year foreign applications to US graduate schools fell by almost a third, and actual enrolment dropped by 6%. Britain did leave India an important legacy: the English language. And while Indian students are starting to look beyond the States, they still like to speak the lingua franca. In recent years European universities have seen their recruitment rise as they introduce English-language courses. Australia, too, is fast rising in the estimation of Indian students. Bollywood blockbusters such as Salaam Namaste, which focused on the beach antics of Indian expats down under, have done Australia's image no end of good.
Patten's mission is a timely one, as the issue may be a matter of life and death for western institutions. Many universities in the developed world would go under if foreign students suddenly returned home. India is one of the biggest exporters of students in absolute numbers, its educational export making up 5% of all those studying abroad. Little wonder people are bothered about where its brightest brains are going
Oxford University is to try to recruit more students from India. Lord Patten the university's chancellor, will visit the county next month as part of an attempt to attract students from around the world.
The 800-year-old institution fears that unless it attracts the world's best students it will not complete with the better-funded Ivy League institutions in the United States. "We have to fight very hard to keep our position in the world league table to stay up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology]," Lord Patten said.
During a week-long visit to India, Lord Patten will attempt to raise Oxford's profile in Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore. He will meet Oxford alumni, speak at a Said Business School seminar, and meet business leaders to discuss ways of raising funds to provide bursaries for Indian students. Only 133 of Oxford's 17,700 students are from India, compared to 547 from China.
Lord Patten fears that many bright students are put off by Oxford's "stuffy image", and choose instead to study in the US. About 17,000 Indian students have chosen British universities compared to nearly 80,000 in the US, he said. "One of the problems in India is that we have a rather conservative, stuffy image. People do not realise the flexibility and modernity of our courses" Lord Patten said. Warning of a crisis in higher education, he added: "We are falling further behind the US." India was a relatively untapped source of talent.
Foreign students are attractive to universities because they pay higher fees than candidates from the United Kingdom. At Oxford, overseas students pay between £8,500 and £11,300 a year compared with £3,000 paid by students from the UK and Europe.
Oxford claims it loses up to £8,000 per student per year, because the cost of running an undergraduate course is about £13,600. The introduction of 'top-up' fees will cut the loss by £1,000. A university spokeswoman said the plan to recruit more foreign students was not a drive to boost Oxford's fee income. But she admitted it was difficult to compete with wealthy American universities which offered generous bursaries.
Chris Patten, the chancellor of Oxford University, was quoted on Tuesday [above] saying: "We have to fight very hard to keep our position in the world league table to stay up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT." According to the most respected league table of universities, the Shanghai survey, Oxford is number nine in the world, behind all the US ones mentioned by Lord Patten, and also behind another British university which holds the number two spot, and which he forgot to cite: Cambridge.
LONDON: In a desperate move to attract fee-paying overseas students, the cash-strapped Oxford University is despatching its high-profile Chancellor, Chris Patten, to India to tap into the booming education market there. Lord Patten will use a series of meetings and speeches in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore next month to try and dispel the perception of Oxford as a "stuffy" place which, the university believes, is one of the reasons why Indians prefer the relaxed American universities.
There is concern that despite a long tradition of Indians coming to the U.K. for higher studies, American universities have overtaken their British counterparts in attracting them. It is estimated that there are nearly 80,000 Indian students on American campuses compared to 17,000 in Britain. Oxford has fewer than 150 Indian students. "One of the problems in India is that we have a rather conservative, stuffy image. People do not realise the flexibility and modernity of our courses," Lord Patten said.
Expressing concern that Britain was falling further behind the U.S. in attracting the best foreign students, he said: "We have to fight very hard to keep our position in the world league table to stay up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT." One of the issues Lord Patten is likely to discuss during his weeklong visit is providing bursaries. It is likely to come up when he meets business leaders.
Experts said the fact that the Chancellor was personally leading the campaign to attract foreign students, who pay as much as three or four times more fee than domestic students, pointed to the extent of the financial crisis facing British universities. Officials denied that the campaign was a "fund-raising" exercise but acknowledged that money was crucial to maintaining Oxford's status as a world-class university with ability to offer attractive scholarships.
Lord Chris Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University, will visit India next month as part of a drive to attract the brightest students from the country to help university compete with the better-funded US Ivy League colleges.
"Globalisation doesn't end at the Thames Valley," the former European commissioner and governor of Hong Kong told the Financial Times in an interview published on Monday. "I hope it will be the first of several visits to India and China over the next few years," he said. "I don't think a serious university can do without a properly thought-through strategy for China and India."
Lord Patten will visit Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi and meet Oxford alumni, speak at a Business School seminar and discuss ways of raising more money for bursaries for Indian students. He said there were about 17,000 Indian students in Britain, compared with nearly 80,000 in the US. He said, "we have to fight very hard to keep our position in the world league table to stay up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT." Oxford had twice as many Chinese as Indian students, he said. "One of the problems in India is that we have a rather conservative, stuffy image. People don't realise the flexibility and modernity of our courses." Cambridge University said on Sunday that it too was committed to attracting the best international students, although its focus has recently been more on China than India.
Lord Patten, who will also co-chair his first annual meeting of the UK-India Round Table in Goa, spoke of a crisis in higher education and research in Europe. "We're falling further and further behind the US," he said. The US spent twice as much as Europe on its universities and on research and development. "Ten years ago, 50 per cent of European students who went to America to do PhDs came back. Last year the figure was 25 per cent. None of us should want to be part of creating an ignorance-based economy."
His comments come against the background of reforms at Oxford, proposed by John Hood, the vice-chancellor, to meet government demands for better governance and make it more attractive to potential donors. Some of the proposals, such as performance appraisals of academic staff, have met strong resistance. The post of chancellor is currently a figurehead. Under the proposed reforms still being debated, Lord Patten would gain greater powers, becoming chairman of a new board of trustees. He defended a planned reduction in undergraduates as necessary to safeguard its teaching quality. Lord Patten denied the motive was the extra money that postgraduates brought to the university.
University Chancellor Lord Patten will tour India next month in an attempt to encourage more Indian students to come and study at Oxford. The Tory peer said he hopes he will be able to address the rather conservative, stuffy image Oxford suffers from in India. "I don't think a serious university can do without a properly thought-through strategy for China and India," he added.
Speaking to the Financial Times this week, Patten said, "We have to fight very hard to keep our position in the world league table to stay up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT." There are currently 146 Indian students, postgraduate and undergraduate, studying in Oxford, compared to 386 from China, and Patten feels that better- unded Ivy League Universities are attracting more and more students away from British Institutions.
During his week in India Lord Patten, whose daughter Alice recently starred in the Bollywood film Rang de Basanti, will visit Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and take part in a forum organised by the Said Business School. Saranya Sridhar, President of Oxford Indian Society, said: "Oxford does not do enough to attract Indian students. In my opinion, the major reason for a number of students shunning the UK in preference to the US is financial support. Oxford does not provide any significant financial support to overseas students and in addition burdens them with heavy fees." Foreign students currently pay between £8,500 and £11,300 a year to study in Oxford. However, Srindhar added, "I am sure Lord Chris Patten understands these issues and will carry a very positive message to India."
A university spokesperson said: "We are seeking to be able to offer more bursaries. Chancellor Patten plans to do some other networking while over there, with a focus on talking to potential contributors to a fund for Indian students in Oxford." But Abhijit Saste, a former President of Oxford India Society, said that, besides tuition fees, there were further reasons for Indian students not to choose UK universities. "One can get to the top of the ladder irrespective of race, colour or creed in the US even if you're not a citizen of the US. But I have personally felt discriminated in several instances here but had to silently bear it to avoid creating havoc. In the future I expect an even greater decline in the number of Indians coming here... The trend is more towards Australia, New Zealand and of course the States." Saste declined to comment further on the instances of racism he had encountered.
Patten's visit comes as admissions of foreign students are expected to drop across the UK. A university spokesperson told this paper: "We do want to buck the trend of fewer foreign students coming over because we consider ourselves a world-class university. Oxford has a long history of admitting excellent applicants from India, however, the number of Indian students here is currently low relative to our overall number of international students and to the size of the university-age population in India." Last year Tony Blair and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a £10m scholarship fund for exchanges between Indian and British universities.