Delhi University is aiming to increase the intake of international students in the upcoming academic cycle by 20 per cent from the previous year, with officials reaching out to diplomatic missions to invite more applications, a varsity official said on Tuesday. In 2022–23, a total of 637 foreign students were admitted across undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD courses at the varsity, he said.
Till now, the university has received around 2,000 applications, including those from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). Foreign nationals are admitted to various programmes of study at the University of Delhi under two categories — self-financing students and students with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations — under its various scholarship schemes.
ICCR administers various scholarship programmes annually and awards about 3,000 scholarships under 21 different schemes to foreign students from about 180 countries. The Delhi University (DU) has taken various steps to increase the intake of ICCR applicants. The admission cycle for foreign students for the academic year 2023-24 has already begun. “The application window is open. We have started working on clearing these applications. We are receiving hundreds of queries every day via phone and e-mail,” Professor Amarjiva Lochan, Dean, International Relations told PTI.
“Last academic session, the admission process was extended till February. And the total number of students admitted was 637, including around 271 under the ICCR scholarship,” Lochan said. This was a slight dip from the previous year (2021) when 650 students were admitted. However, this year, the officials are hopeful that there will be at least a 20 per cent surge in foreign student intake. “We are sure we will be able to touch the mark of 700 this year. DU is India’s best university and we want to make it the first choice for international students,” Lochan said.
To ensure that, Lochan said the DU team handling admissions for foreign students is leaving no stone unturned to ensure more and more foreign admissions this year. The officials at the Foreign Students’ Registry office in North Campus are working expeditiously. “We have taken several steps in the past to ensure more and more students can come. We have maintained a channel with ICCR and asked if any foreign students show interest in DU, the application is directly sent to us,” Lochan said.