Degree deal

New Delhi, March 18: A pact India and China will soon finalise to recognise each other’s higher education degrees will run for five years, after which the two countries will have to review it.

Either government can withdraw from the agreement during the five years “at any time, giving three months’ notice in writing”, the draft says.

A standing expert committee, consisting of officials from both governments, will be formed to supervise the implementation of the agreement.

Around 6,800 Indian students are now studying in China, according to statistics available with the Indian consulate in Shanghai.

The cheap fees are the biggest reason, say experts. “A course in China will typically cost about a half of what it will cost in a private university in India. But the degree in China is not automatically valid here. This agreement will bring a big relief to Indian students,” said Piyush Bahl, CEO of the India China Alliance Centre, a non-government organisation here that helps to facilitate ties between Indian and Chinese universities.

Medical students, who form the bulk of India’s outflow to China, now have to appear for a test with the Medical Council of India on return, before they can practise here. Once the pact comes into force, this test will not be needed.

Courses in humanities, sciences and engineering are now not equivalent either.

But the plight of Indian students is only a part of the reason behind the deal.

According to a recent study by IDP Education, Australia’s biggest student recruiting agency, more than 350,000 mainland Chinese went to study abroad in 2005.

But less than a thousand of those students are currently studying in India, according to officials at the Indian consulate in Shanghai. On an average, between 400 and 600 Chinese students apply for visas to India every year, an official handling education at the consulate said over the telephone.

“Most of them come to India to study engineering, computers and information technology,” D.P. Kothari, vice-chancellor of Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), told The Telegraph.

VIT receives the maximum number of Chinese students in India, according to the Shanghai consulate.

Human resource development ministry officials said India wanted a bigger share of the Chinese foreign students’ “pie”.