The footfall of foreign students at Jadavpur University (JU) is on the rise, following the introduction of “outward transfer of credit”.

Eleven students from Rome have enrolled in postgraduate and undergraduate courses in the arts faculty under the system, which has been implemented on an order from the Union human resources development ministry.

The students will spend a semester at JU and the credits to be awarded to them will be transferred to their home universities, where they will join the subsequent semester.

“The outward transfer of credit is an achievement for the university. It will help us throw open our doors to foreign students in a big way,” said vice-chancellor Pradip Narayan Ghosh.

Before the credit transfer was introduced, the enrolment of foreign students at JU was mostly confined to short-term courses, workshops, seminars and courses run under exchange programmes.

A few students from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and South Africa also study full-time undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the science, arts and engineering streams at JU.

A university official said 30-odd students from across the world are now enrolled in these courses.

The university is also considering introducing inward transfer of credit, which will enable its students to attend a semester at a foreign university in the middle of their course.

“Our aim is to start both inward and outward transfer of credit in all three streams — arts, science and engineering. Most of our courses are of international standards and we must try to attract more students from the US and Europe,” said a senior official.

The Union human resources development ministry last year had asked the university to take steps to increase enrolment of foreign students.

Of the various options that the JU authorities were considering to implement the Centre’s directive, the executive council recently chose the outward transfer of credit.

“There is an overwhelming demand among foreign students for our courses in computer applications, computer science, fine arts, philosophy and English. The demand for our engineering courses, too, is rising,” said Parthapratim Biswas, a teacher of the engineering faculty and member of the executive council (one of the two highest decision-making body of the university, the other being the court).