India should focus on ‘global-ready graduates’ to curb academic migration

India is witnessing an alarming rise in academic migration, commonly referred to as brain drain, with lakhs of students leaving the country every year in pursuit of global degrees and better career prospects. Experts warn that unless India urgently reforms its post-secondary higher education ecosystem, the trend could severely weaken the nation’s academic and innovation landscape.

Recent official data reveal that Indian student migration has steadily increased over the past three years, with around 13.2 lakh students studying abroad in 2023, 13.3 lakh in 2024, and 13.8 lakh in 2025. Kerala alone accounts for nearly 11% of total Indian student migration, reflecting the magnitude of the issue in the State.

The U.S. and Canada together attract nearly 40% of Indian students, followed by the U.K., Australia, and Germany. In recent years, Germany has emerged as a preferred destination due to relatively affordable education, especially in professional courses such as engineering and nursing. Though several German public universities have begun charging semester fees post-COVID, costs remain significantly lower than in many English-speaking countries.

Uncertain outcomes

A majority of Indian students migrating abroad belong to middle-class families, often financing their education through heavy bank loans ranging from ₹30 lakh to ₹₹50 lakh, mainly by mortgaging land and property. While some students secure quality education and meaningful employment, many others end up in lower-tier institutions, face unskilling, underemployment, work in part-time or unskilled jobs, and eventually return to India burdened with debt and limited career prospects.

Seats in universities and colleges in India go vacant and enrolment of talented students falls, leading to the gradual erosion of academic quality, particularly in science, technology, and research-oriented disciplines, ultimately affecting sustainable and holistic development of the country.

A sustainable solution

The internationalisation of higher education is an imperative option for India, driven by social, cultural, political, academic, and economic necessities. This will enhance the quality of post-secondary education and research, and make a meaningful contribution to society. The desired outcomes are multifaceted: producing “global-ready” graduates, fostering groundbreaking research and innovation in cutting-edge areas of various disciplines, accelerating knowledge creation, and building institutional capacity.

A holistic definition for internationalisation is given by the American Council on Education (ACE), which defines comprehensive internationalisation as a strategic, coordinated framework that integrates policies, programmes, initiatives, and individuals to make colleges and universities more globally oriented and internationally connected. In order to foster sustainable and just global engagement, the ACE model embraces an organisational growth mindset. It frames internationalisation as an ongoing process rather than a static one. It recognises that all elements at a college or university — students, faculty, and staff — are learners and central to the institution’s equitable, intercultural transformation. Effective internationalisation cannot happen in a few siloed offices, confined to certain disciplines, or reserved for a limited number of students. All components should be transformed.

Key pillars

To adopt effective internationalisation in colleges and universities, the ACE model emphasises three broad lenses and six focus areas. The first lens is diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which highlights the responsibility of institutions and individuals in promoting racial, economic, and social justice. The second lens focuses on agility and transformation, reflecting an institution’s willingness and capacity to adapt its structures and practices in response to disruptive global, technological, and societal changes. The third lens, data-informed decision-making, ensures that internationalisation goals, progress, and outcomes are grounded in systematic institutional self-study, supported by measurable indicators, and strengthened through continuous assessment.

In addition, the ACE model identifies six key focus areas essential for effective internationalisation:

Institutional strategic planning: the integration of internationalisation goals into the institution’s overall strategic framework.

Leadership and governance: active involvement of senior leadership, supported by appropriate administrative and reporting structures for internationalisation.

Curriculum and co-curriculum: The curriculum serves as the primary pathway to learning for all students, irrespective of background, aspirations, abilities, or institutional type.

Permanent faculty and staff support: ensuring sustained human resources and institutional capacity for international initiatives.

Faculty and student mobility: promotion of exchange programmes and international exposure for both faculty members and students.

Partnerships and networks: internal and external collaborations, whether local or international, that may be transactional in nature or evolve into platforms for innovation, knowledge creation, and collective action on global challenges.

Global-ready graduates

The ultimate outcome of internationalisation is the creation of global-ready graduates — students equipped with international perspectives, intercultural skills, digital competence, and the ability to work across borders. Such reforms can significantly reduce the compulsion for academic migration. Additional benefits include enhanced institutional reputation, increased research output, innovation, knowledge creation, funding opportunities, profit generation and long-term capacity building.

The larger goal is to establish an equitable and inclusive education system, where every student feels a sense of belonging and receives the support needed to achieve equal academic and professional outcomes. Translating this vision into practice requires structured global engagement mechanisms.

Implementation strategies

Different types of university partner agreements are present globally: memorandum of understanding (MoU), student exchange agreements, university-wide agreements and strategic partnerships, transnational education – articulation, blended intensive programmes (BIPs), and GDPR — data sharing agreements, offshore campuses, consortiums/networks are the prominent ones.

Among these, strategic partnerships are a long-term, mutually beneficial collaboration between an educational institution and another organisation, where they combine resources and expertise to achieve goals that neither could accomplish as effectively on their own. Transnational education means the delivery of an educational programme from one country to students located in another country. Education crossing national borders, but student does not need to physically move to the country awarding the degree. Some of the prominent modes are twinning programmes, where curriculum and assessment are designed by the home university and delivered jointly by the home and host partners; two institutions, one degree: the student typically receives a degree from the foreign partner university; joint degree programme: leads to a single degree awarded jointly by two or more universities; dual/double degrees: the student works towards two separate degrees simultaneously — one from the home institution and one from the host institution — through a single, integrated programme of study.

Learning from global models

Academia-industry linkages are another viable option for enhancing education ecosystem and is widely established in developed countries. Global leaders, such as Sweden — renowned as a land of innovation — demonstrate the power of deep academia-industry linkages. This is often achieved through the establishment of science parks and health parks integrated with high-ranking universities. In this, knowledge generated within the university is refined within these adjacent parks, with the final product or application seamlessly transitioning to the neighbouring industry or Technopark. The Lindholmen Science Park and the Sahlgrenska Science Park in Gothenburg, Sweden serve as exemplary global role models for this integrated approach.

The way forward

India should transform the post-secondary higher education system through the above mentioned six focussed areas. All constituents of the university should transform. The curriculum and co-curriculum should be the prime focus. The formal curriculum should have international learning opportunities within credit-bearing modules and courses, use of diversity within the classroom, globally diverse reading lists, guest lectures and other course content, skills for working globally, intercultural and digital skills, collaborative online international learning (COIL), demonstrated knowledge of subject areas in global context, identified cultural influences and factors, and demonstrated intercultural awareness.

Further, co-curricular programmes should provide intercultural learning opportunities, promote engagement between hosting university and international students, promote internationally themed events, festivals and cultural exchange, virtual international experiences and internships, non-credit bearing language learning.

Indian universities should establish MoUs with global universities and organisations and look for possible transnational education programmes, such as twinning, joint degree, and dual degree programmes coordinated through the international office of each university. Also look for ICCR-Govt. of India sponsored and self-financing international students for the various academic programmes. The universities should establish an ‘Erasmus centre’ and look for possible Erasmus European funding for mobility programmes and cutting-edge areas of research.

Further, the universities should have a deep academia-industry linkages and can be established through start-ups-based innovation ecosystem and through the establishment of science parks attached to the universities and medical parks to the health universities. This creates a powerful synergistic ecosystem where academia-research-industry coalesce in a single, dynamic environment. This is also supported by the academic-industry-government triple helix model. This will create an innovative ecosystem leading more start-ups, employment opportunities, and reducing student migration.

Sabu Joseph is Director, Centre for Global Academics, University of Kerala. Views expressed are personal