Capital, India: The National Medical Commission (NMC) has now mandated that every international student who wishes to take a seat in Indian HEls must register at the Education India Portal in order to regularise medical admissions of foreign students into the country’s Higher Education Institutes (HEls). The HEls have also been directed to register on the portal and upload the admission offer issued to students. The notification was published on the NMC’s official website, informing all medical colleges that the Department of Higher Education (DoHE), in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), has developed the Education Ndia Portal, which is now ready for use and will be made mandatory beginning with the academic year 2023–24. 

The concerned international student will need to register on this portal in accordance with the NMC directive. The student will receive a unique ID (UID) following registration on the portal, which may be used for all reasons, including the issuance of a student visa. A student visa will only be issued after the visa issuing authorities have checked and verified the student’s credentials on this portal. Regardless of the length of the course, this will be applicable to all students who want a student visa. 

Also, the HEls must create an account on this portal and upload the admission offer made in the student’s favour. The requirement for the student to create a TAD and register on the portal should be made clear in the admissions offer. The top medical regulator has ordered all medical universities and colleges to register right away on the aforementioned website and to inform international students of this.

The mandate was demonstrated at a conference on February 7 this year, presided over by the Secretary for Higher Education, where all the ministries and departments, as well as the Reserve Bank of India, which oversees Higher Educational Institutions (HEls), have been invited to go over the particulars of putting the Education India portal into operation. It was emphasised that in order to verify the information provided by HEIs on the portal, a Nodal Officer must be designated by the concerned authority or body, and the Nodal Officer’s contact information must be given to DHE as soon as possible. 

The portal is available for utilization and will be made necessary for intakes for the academic session 2023–2024, the Secretary (HE) stated to the attendees. The portal has undergone a number of updates with MHA’s input and a security audit.  Students’ UIDs will be shared with the FRRO, the immigration department, and the MHA for additional processing. In addition, he disclosed that the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) would utilise this platform and solely use it to finance scholarships. 

The UID will be used by the Visa Office/FRRO to process the visa based on the data found on the site. He emphasised how crucial it was for every educational institution and foreign student to sign up on this platform. Also, he made it clear that the compliance officers, who will be chosen by the HEls offering courses to international students, should update the student’s information on a regular basis. INFLIBNET provided a thorough overview of the portal, describing its layout and the details needed to register.

Recently, the NMC released rules for the granting of a Non-Objection Certificate (NOC) to such medicos, standardising the electives and observation programmes offered to foreign nationals at medical colleges nationwide. These regulations establish the time frame, seat distribution, processing fee, and overall purpose of the electives and observer programmes for foreign nationals. 

You can view the NMC notifications by clicking below:

https://t.me/bodmasmedical/2722

India’s education ministry has reported that the number of students travelling overseas for higher studies has experienced an increase of 68% between 2021 and 2022. Specifically, in 2022, 750,365 students left the country for further studies, compared to 444,553 in 2021. Over the last few years, a total of 30 lakh Indians have gone abroad for higher studies, which is a substantial sum of money that could have been spent on India’s own education budget.

In response, Subhash Sarkar, the junior education minister, stated that the government has no plans to establish an “international university of the higher standard” in order to save these funds. Due to stakeholders’ requests, the University Grants Commission has extended the deadline for the draft regulations for setting up and operating the campuses of foreign higher educational institutions in India.

Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, has expressed his disappointment at the number of Indians travelling overseas for education, emphasizing that India should have developed the capacity to attract students from other countries