Friday, June 21, 2013

Fewer foreign students at NID this year

The National Institute of Design’s (NID) move to attract foreign students at the campus suffered a major setback as India’s premier design institute managed to get only 15 NRI students.

Last year, when the idea to have 10 percent seats allotted for students of foreign origin and NRIs was proposed, the management gave it a green signal as the institute was confident of attracting students from across the globe.

However, the real story showed a completely different picture as the 15 students selected from the 26 applications are from countries such as Thailand, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Dubai and Qatar. The institute was expecting major participation from students from countries such as the UK, US, Australia and Germany which has a major chunk of NRIs.

Despite this, NID registrar Vijaya Deshmukh is still upbeat about the decision and said the poor response is because the institute did not adequately advertise overseas.

“The news of admission to foreign students has spread through word of mouth. As we plan for the next academic year, we intend to advertise with help from the Indian Embassy and through advertisement in newspapers overseas,” she said.

NID had decided to give admission to 10 percent foreign students from the
academic year 2013-14. As per the system, if the institute gives admission to 100 students, 10 additional students from the new criterion will be admitted.

Source: DNA News