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The United Kingdom has always been one of the top priorities of Indian as well as other international students. Recently, the Rishi Sunak government had announced that the country will no longer issue dependent visas to family members of undergraduate students. Only the students pursuing a PhD degree and a certain type of masters degree will be allowed to bring their family members. This was a major setback for a lot of students who were planning on bringing their family members with them.
However, there are a lot of other means through which parents and family members will be able to visit their child studying in the UK. The decision taken by the government to put a restriction on dependent visas will only impact a single visa route. There are a lot of other ways through which parents and family members can easily visit their acquaintances studying in the UK.
Recently, UGC has released a notification about the upcoming session of Pareeksha Pe Charcha that will be organised by honourable Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi on 29th January, 2024. The arrangements to broadcast the live session must be made at all schools and universities. The Prime Minister will have a live interaction with students and teachers from different schools and universities. By far more than 2.5 Million registrations have been made.
During the session, the Prime Minister will share expert tips regarding cracking board exams and not taking any extra pressure. The initiative aims to bring students, teachers and educationists from different walks of society and make them have a fruitful discussion related to board exams.
National Girl Child Day is celebrated in India on 24 January 2024. The day celebrates the spirits of girls and their contribution towards society. On the occasion of the special day, here are five exclusive scholarships for female students in India.
Begum Hazrat Mahal Scholarship
This scholarship is specifically for female students from minority communities of India.
AICTE Pragati Scholarship For Girls
This scholarship is specifically meant for supporting girls in the field of technology. Under this scholarship an award of Rs.30,000 is given for the tuition fees and a monthly stipend of Rs.2000 is given for 10 months in a year.
Indira Gandhi Scholarship For Single Girl Child
This scholarship is specifically meant for a single girl child, who is pursuing a non-professional masters degree. selected students are given Rs.2000 monthly stipend for two years of their masters degree.
CBSE Merit Scholarship Scheme For Single Girl Child
This scheme is also for single girl children and is given to meritorious students. The scholarship is open for class 11th and 12th students who have scored more than 60% marks in their class 10th exams. A monthly stipend of Rs.500 is given to students who are studying in a CBSE affiliated school with tuition fees, not more than Rs.1500.
Canada is all set to reduce the total number of international students in 2025. There will be a 35% reduction in the annual intake of international students by Canada. This is going to severely impact the rate of student visa approval for international students. As per the immigration minister of Canada, all these measures have been taken to ensure that international students coming to Canada have plenty of opportunities and good places to stay.
In the past few years, Canada has become the favourite study abroad destination for Indian students. In 2022, 41% of the total student visas issued by Canada were given to Indian students. It is important to note that this gap will be applicable on students pursuing a bachelor's degree or diploma programmes. It will not be applicable on students pursuing a Master's degree or a PhD. Also any student who is already starting in Canada and wants to extend their stay by studying or working will not be affected.
IIM Mumbai is all set to launch a lot of policy-making courses in the coming months for upcoming policymakers. all these courses will be different from each other in terms of duration and nature. IIM Mumbai will be soon launching a proper Centre for Public Policy. The institute has been planning many endeavours for the past couple of months and this is one of the projects that is meant to expand the campus and the courses offered.
Many IIMs also offer similar programmes to students. Right now the programme in policy-making that will be available for students is going to be a three-month long programme. Respectable bureaucrats and former ministers will be a part of the policy-making program to disseminate knowledge related to policy-making.
The National Testing Agency conducts the JEE Mains every year. It is one of the most important competitive exams in the country and there are proper rules and regulations that one has to follow while giving the exam. Let's have a look at some unfair practices in JEE Mains that may lead to disqualification for a particular candidate.
By the end of 2023, the total number of international students studying in Canada officially crossed the 1 million mark. Out of this total international student population, 37% of the students are from India. This is a significant increase in the number of students studying in the country as compared to the previous years. In 2018 the number of international students studying in the country was close to 107,000. Post pandemic, Canada has been very generous when it came to offering student visas.
But now after the recent political tensions between India and Canada, there has been a significant decline in the number of student visas being offered to Indian students.Canada has also announced a cap on international student visas and will now reduce the allotment of student visas by 35%.
NTA has released the admit cards for the JEE mains exam slot 1. The exam will be conducted from 24th January onwards. It is compulsory for all the students to carry their admit cards to the examination centre. Students can download the admit card from the official website of JEE by entering the necessary credentials. Initially the examination will be conducted for programs like BA architecture and BA planning. The official commencement of JEE Mains exam for BTech programme will begin from 27th January.
The session 1 exam for JEE mains will be conducted in two different shifts. All the necessary details are provided on the admit card. Students can refer to the admit card for all the necessary details and must carry everything that is compulsory with them.
A lot of students want to study in the US but are held back because of the high cost of education. Let's have a look at seven different scholarships that students can apply for in the US.
University of Birmingham has announced a scholarship worth £1 million for Indian students. The scholarship is being offered for the session 2024 to 2025. Atudents can now officially apply for the scholarship as the portal has been started by the university. The scholarship is being provided for specific fields and is divided into married based and automatic scholarships. The scholarships will be provided in fields like business, law, environmental sciences, physical sciences, geography, arts and computer science. 20 awards for outstanding scholarships for undergraduate students have been decided by the university. The scholarship will be worth £4000 each. 15 awards for the Indian Chancellor scholarship have also been decided by the university. Each scholarship will be worth £2000.
Due to inflation, the cost of studying abroad has increased significantly. Many countries have imposed additional compulsory expenses that have increased the financial pressure on students. In this scenario, studying abroad seems like a very expensive procedure. Let's look at some of the most affordable countries for Indian students to study abroad in 2024.
Germany
Germany is still a very affordable option for Indian students to study abroad. Germany offers some of the most quality programs in the field of STEM, most of which are taught in English. Not only are the tuition fees affordable, the cost of living is also quite low.
Taiwan
Taiwan is a great study abroad option if you want to study in Asia. In Taiwan, most of the university's charge an annual tuition fee between INR 1.5 lakhs to INR 4 lakhs.
France
France is a culturally rich and a beautiful country. Most public universities in France are also quite affordable and annual tuition fee ranges between INR 3 lakhs to INR 5 lakhs.
Malaysia
Malaysia is a very green and clean country. You can choose to study in the beautiful country and pay a low tuition fee ranging from INR 2 lakhs to INR 4 lakhs per year.
Mexico
Mexico, which is close to the United States of America is also an extremely affordable study abroad option. There are a lot of good universities in Mexico and the tuition fees charged by the public universities of the countries are also very less. Unlike other North American countries, Mexico is not flooded with international students, which is why you will easily find Affordable places to stay and part-time work opportunities.
Trinity College of Dublin is inviting applications from around the world for the trinity research doctorate award. The application process for this team will begin on 1st February, 2024. Upon selection, the student will be studying a PhD programme in the university from the session 2024 to 2025. The whole tuition fee for the four year programme will be sponsored by the university. Along with this, the university will also offer an annual stipend of €25,000.
To be eligible for the scholarship the student must be staying in the country already. Also, there is a certain academic criteria that has to be met to be eligible for the scholarship. The results for the scholarship process will be announced on 14th June, 2024
Canada is all set to announce a two-year limit on the student visa category. The immigration minister of Canada has recently talked about the same in a press conference. By doing so, the government will ensure that the system is not being exploited by the hands of international students. Overall, there will be a 35% reduction in the number of international students coming to Canada every year. Certain provinces like Ontario will be facing very high reductions, going up to 50%.
In the coming week, Canada will also be offering open work permits to spouses of the students pursuing a Masters degree in the country. Along with this, the work permit will also be given to the spouses of students pursuing a doctoral degree or a professional degree like law.
Auckland University of Technology is currently ranked at 49th position worldwide. It is one of the most prestigious universities in the world and offers a lot of courses in the field of STEM to international students. The best part is that all the courses are taught in English so there is no language barrier. Students can choose from more than 250 types of courses that are offered by the university. Recently, the Vice Chancellor of the university has said that the university is planning to offer 130 scholarships to international students in the academic year 2024.
The scholarship will be provided in the form of a 50% rental rebate that will be given to students on a weekly basis. The scholarship will be worth NZ$9060 for a single student.
For the year 2024, around 10 IIMs will be taking part in the CAP selection procedure. The latest addition is IIM Nagpur. This year, everything will be organised and taken care of by IIM Kashipur. CAP refers to the common admission process under which candidates are shortlisted and interviewed on the basis of their applications and CAT scores.
For the CAP round, CAP will be releasing a tentative cut-off for CAT. The final cut off will be announced after the result for CAT is announced. Now that the results for CAT have been announced, it is expected that CAP counselling is going to start very soon. The amount of weightage that institutes give to CAT depends on institution to institution.
In a recent interview with the press, Marc Miller, who is the immigration minister of Canada said that the study permit given to Indian students fell dramatically by the mid of 2023. This is because in September all the Canadian diplomats staying in India were asked to leave the country over a political feud between the two countries. After that the visa allotment between Canada and India was stopped for some time. The halt led to a massive decline in the number of student visas issued to Indian students. Since then there has been a stricter protocol for Indian students. On top of it, the minimum financial requirement to stay in Canada has also been doubled. Student visas for Indian students are getting rejected for unspecified reasons. This has led to a decline in the visa applications for Canada.
In the third quarter of 2023, 1,08,940 student visas were granted to Indian students. On the other hand in the fourth quarter, only 14,910 student visas were granted to Indian students. This is roughly a 86% decline.
Students sitting for the board exams for 2024 to 2025 session will be the first batch in a very long time to give board exams twice in a single year. It was only in 2021 that the board exams had to be conducted twice, but that was because of the pandemic. From this year onwards, CBSE has taken a conscious decision and will conduct board exams for class 10th and 12th twice in a year. This is a compulsory criteria for all schools for students. The aim of this pattern is to reduce stress for students and not make board exams a one time opportunity. Candidates will have the ability to choose between giving the two sets of board exams. If a candidate is satisfied with the first time then there is no need to give the board exam again. The whole criteria will be explained by CBSE once the board exams for the previous session are over. This new pattern is in alignment with the New Education Policy.
The CBSE board exams for class 10th and 12th are going to start from the middle of February. Students will need their admit cards to sit in the examination centres and give their exam. It is expected that the admit cards will be released by CBSE by next week. The responsibility of printing and distributing admit cards among students is given to the respective school. Students who are private candidates will have to download the admit cards by themselves and get it printed. Admit cards for both regular and private candidates will be released by next week. As per sources, CBSE has already started sharing examination roll numbers of students with schools. It is most likely that proper admit cards and roll numbers will be released by next week.
The US Citizenship and Immigration services has made the decision to increase the premium processing fees for both H1B visa and student visas. The premium processing fees have been the same for the past three years. So now USCIS has decided that the premium processing fee for all paid eligible will be increased. Different forms like Form I- 907, Form I-129, Form I-539 and many more will be included under this category. The fees have been increased by a margin of US$150 to US$350 for certain categories.
This new criteria will be effective from 26th February, 2024. Any person who fills the form after 26th February, will get their application rejected. In case the USCIS decides to make any further changes, then excess processing fees if any will be refunded to the concerned person.
The Ministry of education has released guidelines regarding coaching centres in India. Most of the coaching centres have been banned from enrolling students below the age of 16. This decision has been taken considering the recent miss happenings that have taken place in many coaching centres. Also any person who doesn't have a minimum qualification of graduation is also not eligible to teach at a coaching centre. This applies for both private and government coaching institutes. A lot of other guidelines related to the tuition fees, the design of the coaching centre and the working hours have also been specified.
The tuition fee charged by a particular institute for a course must be justified in a prospectus that defines the syllabus in detail and the way in which the students will be taught. The prospectus should also mention if the coaching centre has hostel facilities and canteen facilities. Fire exits are also necessary to prevent any kind of mishappening.
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