The 100-year-old Osmania University, Hyderabad is facing rarity of foreign students on campus, lately. From 4,000 international students in the academic year of 2017-18, the foreign students’ count at Osmania University has reduced to 2,879 students from 70 different countries in the academic year of 2018-19.
The numbers of admissions to the university have been plunging for the past four years. 1,666 international students got admission in 2016-17 whereas, in 2019-20, the university has managed to get only 342 foreign students enrolled so far. These numbers are against the 900 students at OU in 2017-18 and 470 students who came to the university in 2018-19. By comparing the admission data of the last three academic years, the number of foreign students joining OU has dropped by a solid 62 per cent.
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As per the information available in the Osmania University Foreign Relations Office, the international students in the university were enrolled in undergraduate courses (majorly in BA) and in some postgraduate programmes as well. The majority of international students were from Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. The varsity authorities say that the numbers from these countries have gone down due to the prevailing conditions there. Giving the reasons, it said that the Indian embassies have tightened the visa norms which has led to this situation at the university. They said that earlier, the students were granted Indian student visas must easily.
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A senior official from the authority stated the reasons for the Indian student visa denial saying that now Indian embassies conduct an interview. He added that many students even fail to answer which programme they want to pursue here. Students with good communication skills in English have higher chances of getting a visa, he said.
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