Can Greece become a destination for Indian students?

India’s Ministry of External Affairs informed Rajya Sabha last month that Indian students now study in more than 240 countries globally, and although the UK, US, Australia and Canada still remains the preferred choice, the question arises whether Greece could be such a destination.

According to the data, as cited by The Economic Times, the numbers have risen after the pandemic, with India now even surpassing China in terms of the most international students in the US in 2022.

India and Greece have signed a a Cultural and Educational Exchange Programme for 2022-2026 and Greece plans on increasing its outreach to Indian academic institutions through the official “Study in Greece” platform. This is with the intended hope of tapping into Indian students going abroad.

Let’s look at ET’s compilation of Indian students abroad.

The United States of America

According to a report by Open Doors 2022, there was a surge of nearly 20% in the number of Indian students studying in US for the academic year 2021-2022. The total number of students enrolled were 1,99,182.

United Kingdom

After the announcement of Graduate Route visa by the British government in 2019, UK has seen a sharp spike in the number of Indian students joining their universities.

According to statistics available on UK government website, Britain granted 1.4 lakh sponsored study visa to Indians in 2022, a major increase from 34,261 visas in 2019.

Canada

Canada has seen a consistent rise in the influx of Indian students. As per the data, there were over 2.2 lakh Indian study permit holders studying in Canadian colleges in 2019. Indian students constitute of 34 per cent of Canada’s foreign student population.

There are more than 3 lakh Indian students studying in Canada currently.

Ukraine and China

These two countries have always remained popular amongst the students who want to pursue medical. The ongoing Ukraine crisis has put a question mark on the future of some 18,000 Indian medical students.

On the other hand, around 23,000 medical students who were studying in China could not go back since pandemic. Last year, China opened up student visas in August and around 6,200 of them have obtained it.

Meanwhile, France plans to attract 20,000 Indian students by 2025. Around 10,000 students were studying in French universities in 2019.

READ MORE: The contribution of the Greeks and Philhellenes of India to Greece’s Independence.