In line with the global trend a number of Indian institutes have set up international exchange programs for the students. For instance, in order to provide a cross cultural exposure and a global perspective to the students, IIT Bombay has developed an extensive International Students Exchange Program where nearly 40% of the batch gets a chance to spend a term at a Partner Institute. The institution is planning expansion of  the Program to facilitate a higher number of students participation in these programs. The balance of the students who for some reason are not able to take up the exchange program also benefit  from having interaction with overseas students visiting the institute.

To ensure the efficacy of such exchange programs, enlisted students in their fifth term have to take the full course load for students at their respective University taking only post-graduate level courses which should not be less than 120 contact hours over the exchange term. A student can take credit for a maximum of 30 additional contact hours beyond 120, provided the course is approved by the Office of International Affairs (OIA) Committee. Thus, a student must earn 12 -15 credits while on exchange. The exchange visits in programs in some of the universities range from a week to a semester. The diversity in a classroom due to exchange programs enhances peer learning experience and enriches the classroom interactions, besides giving participants a cross-cultural perspective to the students as a whole.

Exchange programs also introduce to the university to offer an opportunity for participants to pursue specialized courses in leading foreign B-schools for a full semester to gain such knowledge and skills which can lead to higher level of job opportunities thus increasing the institution’s USP and making it a popular destination for candidates.

In an integrated world economy there is a requirement for students to have firsthand experience of various cultures and have to be competent in handling situations in international environment, with a good grasp on local languages. This is the main selling point of Student Exchange Programs as such programs aim at elevating global and cultural knowledge, enhance intercultural communication competencies, address issues arising from inter-cultural traditional issues,  encourage independent learning and facilitate foreign language skills among students thus enhancing career path progression.

Student Exchange Programs provide a firsthand life enriching experience to students engaged in such programs when they are visiting a new country by giving in depth exposure to a student of the traditions, different way of doing things thus making the process and learning very exciting. Such early exposure is likely to play a critical role in delicate matters of human resources as well as conflict and resource management in a student’s life. The in-depth self-study of the host country helps students enhance interest in various global issues such as the conflicts between the developed and the developing nations and provide exposure to students of the different perspectives and views. Students learn to understand the ethos and value systems which are different for each country. . Student Exchange Programs help erase superficial stereotype images that one generally have of a specific country/culture , bridges  gaps through various interactive intercultural communications by understanding different  viewpoints and cultural values between the native and host country. These exposures enrich a participant’s experiences thus exploiting opportunities, mitigating conflicts and thus gaining the maximum ROI for the companies that these individuals later work for.

The universities offering exchange programs benefit from these programs too as they become more visible and develop aspiration quotient.  The partnership with premiere higher education providers around the world increases their threshold, improves the quality of content of their programs and in some cases attracts expat instructional staff, thus enriching the professional dimension of the institution as a whole. These universities through such programs can restructure their business potential and exploit the true potential of their programs by providing quality learning in multi dimensions and disciplines thus facilitating better placements to its students.   The institution offering such programs also benefit from the reciprocal technology exposure to students that are available in developed countries as the home students who undergo such experience, benefit from it and their narration of these at home class also benefits others and adds to the value offered by the parent institute.

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The demand for international faculty in Indian institutions and the resultant influx of foreign faculty in recent times has been due to the pursuit of academic excellence by most of these institutes. These institutions are driven by the belief that by hiring foreign nationals would make help them get better rankings in global listings of top colleges as internationalization of campus is good for rankings. Until recently the foreign faculty in Indian institutions was primarily on faculty exchange programs or as a part of international visiting faculty. The institutions have always desired to hire foreign faculty or faculty with global experience; it is only recently that they have been making concerted efforts to market themselves internationally. Comparative salaries and global competition has also successfully driven international teaching talent to Indian institutes.

Building institutes of academic excellence is a time-taking and incremental process. Once an institution has achieved a certain level of reputation, maintaining it at that level is also quite a challenge. Thus, even the best universities are in constant quest to access indicators of prestige like knowledge, research and talent.  And while evaluating the indicators does one realize the importance of faculty in making an institution. International teacher researchers bring academic excellence well within reach of the Indian institutions.

The Indian institutions both private and state funded are gradually seeing an increase in applications from faculty based out of India for they also are of the belief that the foreign faculty would enable them to strengthen and enhance research visibility in international forums.

Raging debates in favour of and against appointment of foreign faculty in Indian institutes has thrown up a number of points in favour of appointment of international faculty. Though the debate veers between obsequiousness and arrogance the middle path allows us to move to a quality based system where the institute would gain tangible outcomes.

Firstly, it is a belief that by bringing faculty from abroad would catapult Indian institutions to ‘Top 100’ global rankings. Globalization has had a major influence on Indian higher education with the ease of mobility the institutes are demonstrating greater international strategies simply by the numbers of international faculty. No Indian institution has featured among the top 100 in global rankings, which is a worrisome obstacle and concerted effort is required to change the situation.

Secondly, our outdated, rigid curricula and the absence of in course content and skill development will be infused with fresh viewpoints from different cultures and value system.

Thirdly, compared to the West lack of inquiry based learning and early researcher skills is limiting the capacity of Indian institutions to engage in vital research and innovation activity. India is not producing enough PhDs and very few students in India as compared to other countries in the West are enrolled as postgraduate researchers. But recently due to the government’s outlook towards internationalization and India’s transition from an inward gazing scientific culture to one increasingly characterized by external engagement Indian institutions are hosting foreign faculty in stable, long term posts more frequently than ever before.

Lastly and not in any way lesser than the others is the inclusion of foreign faculty in the Indian education system would finally render the teaching space market driven in the future. It will increase the quality and the competitive spirit within the Indian academic community as we are likely to see more and more academics who are genuinely interested in the profession and not those who were led to teaching by default.

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The trend is growing leaps and bounds in last few years of foreign academics joining Indian institutions. Most of foreign faculty joining Indian educational institutions is of Indian origin but there are many academics of foreign origin also coming to India and working here as faculty and helping Indian students getting a diverse global perspective. A very generic question arise in our minds is why foreign faculty joining Indian Universities leaving their fat pay packets and environment of top ranked universities from developed hemisphere of Earth, where they get all facilities as per international standards, mostly these foreign universities have set benchmarks of education and research.

There are a lot of reasons that pull foreign faculty to Indian universities, some of them being growing opportunities in Indian education institutions; their earnest desire to give back to home country; growing competition in developed education systems; willingness to work in developing country and India provides ample opportunities for being a developing country with distinct view; alma mater calling; culture calling; and many times it’s their personal reasons, like, aging parents, spouse’s workplace, rearing of children in India, and so on.

Opportunities in Indian education:

In India, there is dearth of academics in educational institutions. This shortage is acute if we look at higher education sector more than 30 %, and further aggravates when we aspire for good academics as faculty. The search for good faculty with diverse perspective leads universities to foreign faculty willing to help Indian educational institutions bringing more research oriented outlook by working for them in their Indian campus. Indian institutions also deviate from their normal working structures at-times to attract international faculties. Faculty gets a lot of scope for mentoring and research in Indian universities. They may not be paid as per globally top ranked universities and institutions, but have a lot of scope to satiate their academic thirst.

Higher competition in developed education systems

Nowadays, in developed countries’ education system it is getting difficult to obtain faculty position in top educational institutions for non-local academics. Government of developed countries have even reduced funding to educational institutions has made it tough to become a tenured professor for academics; and has increased competition amongst academics. In developed countries faculty has very hectic schedules of teaching and conferences that leave no space for research and other academic interests.

Give back to home country

There is a good number of foreign academics wants to return favour to their homeland i.e., India. After, getting global exposure and feeling of accomplishment on international platform, they are longing to enhance the level of Indian higher education and research at par with world-class universities. Now that even Indian institutes are also willing to have foreign faculty for visiting, part-time or full-time engagement, this compliments the faculty’s choice well.

Culture calling

India has a varied culture. Many international faculty of Indian origin have deep seated grains of culture that do not allow them to adapt to culture of foreign land. After spending time at foreign land foreign faculty get nostalgic, and found themselves no good fit in foreign culture, starts looking for options of their stature in Indian educational institutions to satiate their desire to be attached to their roots.

Wants to work in developing economy

Faculty of top ranked global universities researching on developing economies or on India in specific, look forward to take teaching assignments in India to get more clear perspective about their topic of research. They feel that India has good prospects of research on developing world. For research on developing country topics, even foreign faculty of foreign origin are choosing Indian institutions to work with. They find most favourable environment for such researches and studies in Indian universities.

Alma mater calling

Foreign academics of Indian origin, after satisfying their desire of being faculty in top global universities feel obliged to their alma mater back in India. They want to return favour by mentoring students of their alma mater or by becoming mentor to their alma mater itself. These international faculties join Indian educational institutions as visiting faculty; part-time faculty; full-time faculty and in some cases as advisors to the Indian institute as well.

Personal reasons

At times foreign faculty of Indian origin return for personal reasons, like their parents require them at the eve of their life; some foreign academics return for the future of their children i.e. they want their children to grow in their home country and culture, inculcate same values and traditions as their own. In some cases, their spouse is in India or spouse has work base in India and parents are also in India which pulls them to look for assignment with Indian educational institutions.

There must be many other reasons for foreign faculty to move with their bag and baggage to India, personal; professional; social; academic; emotional or any or all of them, result of their movement help them satisfy their mental faculties and students of these institutions have different viewpoint and international exposure from faculty. Institutions get international perspective while deciding about the syllabus and research and studies. It is more of a win-win situation for faculty, institution and students as well as economy as added faculty reduces the gap of faculty crunch.

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