Changing Study Abroad Destination For Indian Students Amid Covid 19 Pandemic

Recently, SkillOutlook had an interaction with The WorldGrad Team – Amit Garga, Abhinav Mital and Pranav Saxena, the founding team. Here is the brief of the conversations on the study abroad landscape with respect to students from India.

Article Featured On: Skill Outlook

Incepted in late 2019 and launched in 2021,  The WorldGrad is a study abroad EdTech platform that provides ease of access to Indian students to pursue global education. Recently, SkillOutlook had an interaction with The WorldGrad Team – Amit Garga, Abhinav Mital and Pranav Saxena, the founding team. Here is the brief of the conversations on the study abroad landscape with respect to students from India.

1. Amidst COVID how the landscape for Indians is to Study Abroad, consider countries like the US.

There is no doubt that COVID has dampened the travel plans of all students, but it surely hasn’t dampened their spirits! Almost all the key destination countries have put in special initiatives to welcome international students – whether it is through the provision of remote learning or through vaccination / quarantine provisions. Even countries like Australia that have one of the strictest border closures are starting to run trials to resume international student movement.

However, a bigger and unspoken hurdle for families is affordability. COVID has created a deep impact on the economic well-being of households in India across the strata. It is interesting to note that many students aspiring to go overseas come from middle to upper income families running small to mid-sized businesses. COVID has created a hole in their savings forcing them to reconsider or postponing an UG degree to a PG degree abroad.

With a number of hybrid learning options available through online platforms like The WorldGrad, students can still pursue their dreams while making it easier on the pocket. Our programs, coupled with scholarships, allow students to save nearly INR20L on an undergraduate degree by doing a part of the first year online and finishing the rest on campus. Through this route, students can study in US, UK or Australia despite the hurdles COVID has created

2. Australia is fast becoming a preferred destination for Indians to study abroad, what are your thoughts on this?

Australia has become one of the most popular undergraduate destinations for Indian students. In the early 2010s it was considered a second-tier option mostly for vocational programs. However, in the last few years we have seen a massive increase in Indian students opting for Australian universities. Before the pandemic, there were 79,410 Indians enrolled in Australian universities, up by 50% over 2017. The country offers great study options to students with most of its universities in the global Top 500 and 10 in Top 200 mostly running a 3-year undergraduate program which keeps the costs down. Added to that, the country is known for its quality of life and has some of the best cities in the world to live in. 2020 and 2021 so far have been tough for those planning to go to Australia as it has adopted one of the strictest border control measures. New intakes have fallen by more than 50% YTD 2021 vs 2019. Irony is that Australia has managed to control COVID much better than other markets like Canada, UK and the US and therefore if you are much safer being there than anywhere else!

Looking forward, we expect that Australia will bounce back sharply the moment travel restrictions are lifted because the fundamentals of quality education, employment and quality of life offered remains superior to many other study options that students evaluate.

3.What are the job opportunities for Indians studying abroad keeping in mind the COVID situation?

COVID has had a bigger impact on students getting jobs while studying rather than post-study employment at this point. Most destination economies are recovering well from COVID which means for students completing their studies, there should be a good number of options available – especially in tech-enabled  businesses. This is well aligned with the two most popular discipline areas for Indian students which are Business and Technology. On the other hand, students looking for part-time jobs while studying are facing challenges as industries like hospitality, retail, restaurants have remained in partial shutdown or are more prone to shutdowns.

This means that students need to be more prudent and planned about managing their expenses as part-time earning options have dried up. This is yet another advantage of starting with The WorldGrad since you save tuition fee and living expenses by starting online.

4.What according to you are the best destinations abroad for PhD/Doctorate- from your experience in the education domain.

One needs to look at indicators of quality research as well as funding in their field of study in order to determine a suitable university for PhD. Given how specialized you need to be at the PhD level, this really boils down to the area of interest for the student. With over $600B per annum spend, The United States ranks on top in both total spend on research and per capita spend on research. Therefore, it is one of the obvious choices for PhD students. However, if you look at citable scientific research per capita, the USA does not figure in the top 15 countries.  Alternate options can be found in EU countries, Australia and even Singapore which rank in top 15 on most of the relevant research metrics.

5.What are the future plans of The WorldGrad?

Our mission is to make global education more accessible to students and we achieve this by creating hybrid learning models where students can start an overseas degree online and complete it on campus. This helps students save money, time and they are better prepared to succeed in an overseas environment. Very soon we will be adding US program options to our existing portfolio of UK and Australian universities. We have rapidly expanded our team and hope to add another 100 people in the coming few months in all areas of program delivery – admissions, learning design, teaching and operations. At the same time, we want to continue adding quality education partners and program options and take our 100+ qualifications to over 200 undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

6. For the study abroad aspirants, highlight the USPs of The WorldGrad as a platform of choice.

Firstly, The WorldGrad is an online education platform and not a marketing or application platform unlike most other ed-tech names in this space. Through our exclusive program partnerships with overseas institutions, we offer students an authentic journey towards a global education. Because the student is in our care for up to a year of their program, we are committed to their success and successful transition to the overseas campus rather than simply process applications for commissions.

Secondly, we have successfully created a unique online learning experience for students which is customised for the Indian student while preserving the international standards and outcomes. For example, in addition to students having access to high quality, mobile-friendly online content, they come in direct contact with overseas educators who lead the academic journey like on-campus learning. All contact hours are scheduled as per Indian time zones making it convenient for students to attend sessions. On top of this, The WorldGrad is the only online provider that offers unlimited 1-1 academic assistance to students, 7 days a week, for doubt-solving, homework help and assessment preparation. Our tech-platform uses learning analytics to create personalised engagement plans for each student. This creates a highly engagement driven learning environment personalised for each student thereby improving student outcomes.

Lastly, we offer students entry routes to the most employment-oriented and current programs. Students can choose to graduate in business analytics, cyber security, big data, international finance or new age courses in hospitality, sports and events management, becoming eligible for post-study work rights in each of the destination markets. This becomes the foundation of a long and successful global career.

Author: Deepak Shukla