A panel dialogue titled ‘India, place of skills and innovation’, organised by CNCCEF India (French Overseas Commerce Advisors) and the Nationwide Fee for Coaching in France final month, meant to offer a perspective on fashionable India to French college students who might need to select the nation for change semesters, internships or Volunteer for Worldwide Expertise.
The occasion attracted greater than 2,000 French college students throughout 65 establishments in France.
Displays on the standard of larger schooling in India, an outline of India’s financial system in mild of it being the fifth largest on the planet, deal with tech innovation and different promising sectors corresponding to aeronautics and defence, organising enterprises in India, and the way younger French folks can work within the nation, had been a few of the key agendas of the session.
“When France is taking a look at growing the variety of Indians finding out in France, French college students must also be inspired to come back to India,” mentioned Maud Le Bars, South Asia Space Supervisor, Omnes Training, who moderated the session.
“Certainly, all of it begins with sturdy college collaborations primarily based on reciprocity and a stability of exchanges.”
French trade professionals presently working in India served as panellists and addressed questions from college students.
Queries ranged from cultural practices within the nation, the security of ladies, function caste performs within the workforce, respect for time and punctuality, as panellists sought to dispel any prejudice about India.
“Historically many French college students select Latin American international locations or China”
Presently, round 8,000-10,000 Indian college students examine in France, with the quantity anticipated to go as much as 25,000 by 2025. Nonetheless, not sufficient French college students select India as an change vacation spot which might change primarily based on the suggestions gathered from the session.
“Historically many French college students select Latin American international locations or China as locations for his or her change semester,” Le Bars advised The PIE.
Semester exchanges with out charges are primarily based on reciprocity and may solely be sustainable if French faculties ship an equal variety of French college students, Le Bars continued.
“For this reason now we have made efforts lately to advertise India to the younger French neighborhood. Some 75% of the two,000 college students who joined us for the March webinar mentioned they’d put India on their precedence for change semesters/internships/first job when a earlier survey talked about solely 10% of French youth had been remotely contemplating the nation,” Le Bars mentioned.
Collaborating college students and college members had been from famend engineering, enterprise and administration establishments throughout France corresponding to ESCE Paris, INSEEC, ECE Paris, Grenoble INP, ITECH Lyon, IAE Chambery, and extra.
France and India, who’ve historically maintained a strategic relationship, at the moment are selling extra people-to-people exchanges with larger schooling on the centre of it.
Again in July 2023, India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs introduced the issuance of a five-year validity short-stay schengen visa for Indians who’re diploma holders from French instructional establishments (masters and above).
As per sources in Campus France India, 1,000-1,500 Indian change college students in France may also profit from this short-stay visa, which was beforehand restricted to masters college students.
Furthermore, French President Emmanuel Macron, who served because the Chief Visitor for India’s Republic Day 2024 on January 26, introduced the launch of Lessons Internationales for Indian college students to study French for a yr in France earlier than pursuing the diploma of their alternative.
In keeping with Campus France’s web site, France and India may also kind a joint committee to advertise superior analysis and are set to create a joint Grasp’s course within the healthcare sector by way of the Franco-Indian campus within the Indo-Pacific area.
Over 412,000 worldwide college students are presently finding out in France, making it the sixth hottest examine vacation spot, as reported by The PIE.
