BANGALORE: India’s efforts to become Asia’s “Knowledge Hub” may soon materialise. A recent survey report has revealed that India registered a higher percentage of enrolment of international students and research collaboration than China.According to the report National Higher Education Systems 2012 conducted by Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, India has beaten China under “Connectivity” for having a higher education system that is better connected internationally.Despite a meagre score of 19.4 over 100, India has surpassed China, Turkey and Iran in attracting international students and international research collaboration. China is ranked lowest for connectivity, with 12.8.“Connectivity has been our advantage for we have the British education system with English as medium of learning. Our research has had good collaborations with foreign scholars. However, we can enhance this by providing more scholarships to students who wish to study here,” said Prof Ram Singh Nirjar, former chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).Researchers from the Univeristy of Melbourne looked at the most recent data from 48 countries across 20 different measures under four categories — resources, environment, connectivity and output. While India ranks consistently low across all the measures, academicians believe that India can strengthen on connectivity.“The fact that more Indians are contributing to global science research is beneficial as it brings in goodwill. However, we must work at sustaining reciprocal connectivity, which comes only from improving quality,” said Prof M I Savadatti, former UGC member and V-C of Mangalore University.Connectivity was measured in terms of the proportion of international students in tertiary education and proportion of research articles co-authored with international collaborators between 2005-2009. In 2008, there were 21,778 international students in India.
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