94% Indian Students Want To Study Abroad This Year: ReportThe study further revealed that around 71 per cent students chose better healthcare infrastructure as one of their key reasons to study and look at opportunities abroad

The ongoing pandemic failed to dampen the interests of Indian students who are planning to go for abroad studies. According to a report, around 94 per cent of Indian students are more keen to travel and study abroad this year compared to last year. The survey was conducted by Leverage Edu, a series A funded edtech startup that helps students select higher education programme based on mentoring workshops.

The survey found out that around 75 per cent of students who have registered for the Leverage Edu program in the last five months chose to study in the UK. Canada and the US were chosen by 13 per cent and 9 per cent students respectively.

The study further revealed that around 71 per cent students chose better healthcare infrastructure as one of their key reasons to study and look at opportunities abroad. Almost 60 per cent of the students are trying to fund their abroad studies through an education loan.

Interestingly, 58 per cent students said they had made their plans within the last three months, while 36 per cent said they had plans for much longer and are now continuing them.

Almost 59 per cent students chose not to change their study destination this year while 28 per cent students changed their destination choice from another country to the UK due the country's pace of vaccination, the NHS's policies, among other factors.

Management/Business remained the top choice of course followed by Engineering with 35 per cent. Data Science/Analytics also made its mark with 9% students going for the course this year.

"Everything has been leading into these trends for a while now, and the last few months have definitely accelerated that. The UK, USA and Canada have come up with numerous pro-student policies in the last year, and are hence getting rewarded. Healthcare has become a living room conversation now. Universities have supported International students by providing waivers and relaxation on various requirements, infact as per the latest - a) Indian students are being added to US's travel exemption list, b) UK and India have come together to sign a Migration and Mobility Partnership and c) Canada has launched additional 90k PR's early this month - so the perfect cocktail in some sense. There were concerns over visa appointments for a while, given top metro cities were in lockdown, but they have largely eased off as well over the last 8-10 days. The next 2-3 academic intakes are going to be quite the rebound," said Akshay Chaturvedi, founder and chief executive officer of Leverage Edu.

At present, India is the second-largest source of international students after China. As per UNESCO, in 2018, of the 5 million international students, 750,000 were from India. From 2000 to 2016, Indians going abroad to study has gone up by 22 per cent.