Study Abroad dreams are not restricted to students of Tier-I cities anymore. The Tier-II city students now have more options than ever thanks to the booming edtech industry.
Top study abroad markets like the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada are seeing a lot of pent-up demand for international study from Indian students.
More than 1,60,000 Indians were approved to study in Canada in the first half of 2021. That’s more than four times the number over the same period in 2020. And those numbers will continue to rise as we head into 2022.
It’s not just Tier-I cities. With young populations and a booming middle class, India’s Tier-II cities are emerging as some of the fastest-growing in the world—and this has meant exciting measures ahead in their education infrastructure.
Tier-II cities on the rise
Tier-II cities such as Vadodara, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Indore, Dehradun, Thrissur, Jaipur, and Nagpur are emerging as education hubs, and improved internet access, in general, has helped the students to study in foreign countries of their choices and needs.
India has a huge population of younger generation between the age group between 16 to 35. The Tier-II cities can not only just study abroad and seek opportunities globally, but it can also contribute to India’s prosperity and domestic labour market after they study overseas, and come back to their native cities.
Typically, test prep centres have been the go-to place as they equip students with the knowledge and practice to succeed in university and certification exams. Historically, Tier-II cities have had few test prep centres, many offering inconsistent instruction.
The year 2020 was filled with challenges, but also innovations, bringing an abrupt shift to digital solutions. With top Indian test prep centres moving online, students across the country now have access to India’s best instructors.
Booming edtech sector breaking down barriers
Study Abroad firm such as Kanan International offers similar advantages by connecting students, counsellors, and schools on a single, integrated edtech platform. Their online portal KananPrep helps students to prepare for their foreign education.
Students can easily prepare for their IELTS, GRE, TEOFL-iBT, SAT, GMAT, PTE, Spoken English, French, and Duolingo English Test online with live classes, mock tests, personalised doubt solving sessions.
Thousands of students benefited from these online classes during the Covid-19 induced lockdown and have achieved their dreams of studying in a foreign country.
Rather than waiting for school representatives to come to them, students living in Tier-II cities can discover the best fit themselves online with the help of their counsellors.
The counsellors themselves are becoming better able to support the students and their parents as well. These highly-trained professionals provide an essential service to students looking to study abroad.
But the experience and exposure of counsellors in Tier-II cities is often limited to specific countries and schools, limiting their students’ opportunities.
Though many of the online platforms to help students study abroad provides specialized training for counsellors along with access to thousands of programmes across the world in top study-abroad destinations like Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia.
Future of international education
For students looking to study abroad and remain in their destination country, keeping new emerging job areas in mind before applying for schools is critical for achieving post-graduation success.
For example, job vacancies in the Canadian healthcare and social assistance industry hit nearly 1,10,000 in June 2021. There is also a labour shortage of over 1,00,000 skilled tradespeople expected in Canada by 2030. Many other countries rely heavily on international students as a key source of skilled workers.
Education systems in Tier-II cities are working towards building strong education systems which will help India achieve many of its goals set out in the National Education Policy 2020.
One of the goals noted within the policy is how the government wants to increase Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education from 26.3% to 50% by 2035.
Edtech firms can be instrumental in helping to reach this goal by leveraging their existing educational partnerships to facilitate connections between Indian and global educational institutions.
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