A Study of Preferred Study Destination of Indian Students Abroad

Abstract

As our global society become increasingly interconnected, people from all cultures, races and ethnicities have more contact with other parts of the world. International educational exchange is one avenue that allows students from all over the world to develop an international understanding by experiencing life in a new culture or country. The number of students enrolled in tertiary education outside their country of citizenship has sharply increased over the last decades, reflecting the expansion of tertiary education systems worldwide and the globalisation of economies and societies. Higher education has expanded remarkably in recent decades. China and India have doubled their enrolments in the past 10 years alone. The objective of the study is to find out the demographic profile of prospective Indian students and the preferred destination. The descriptive research design was followed in this research. The researcher has distributed 770 questionnaires, but collected back 580 questionnaires. After scrutiny, a sum of 174 filled-in questionnaires has rejected due to incompleteness, errors and inadequate information. Finally, 406 filled questionnaires were used in the present study. The sampling technique used for collecting data is convenience sampling. The findings shows that the most preferred destination is US followed by UK, Canada, Singapore and Australia, preferred duration is for more than one year followed by for a year, for a semester, for a summer and for a few weeks. Types of study interested in pursuing while abroad are Master degree, Bachelor degree and Ph.D. This knowledge is a key to formulating effective communication and recruitment strategies for Higher education institutes to attract Indian students.