Despite the fact that the past few years have seen a general rise in intensity of the separate Telangana movement, there has been an increase in the number of foreign students choosing Osmania University and its constituent colleges for their higher education.
The initial fears of the Telangana movement, violence and the related chaos of academic schedule, driving away foreign students has turned out to be unfounded. 2011-12 saw over 300 more students coming over than two years ago.
The main reason is that they find the university course fees affordable. They also see no threat from Telangana agitators as they do not trouble them.
“Though our academic schedule was disrupted many times during the last three years because of the Telangana movement, local students were never harmed. That is why, students still come to the University,” said Ahamed Saif, a B.Com final year student of Nizam College and hailing from Sudan.
The cost of living in the city is lower than other metro cities in the country. The fees are also much lower, prompting students from over 78 countries to sign up for the courses of their choice.
Most of the students hail from developing countries of Asia and Africa, with most of them from Sudan. “The Nizam College has nearly 1,000 foreign students,” said C Venugopal Rao, director of University Foreign Relation Office (UFRO).
As many as 213 candidates also joined Certificate Course in English for Foreign Students (CCEFS), which was introduced this year. [Express News Service]