The Russian invasion of Ukraine has laid bare the underbelly of unorganised student migration from Kerala to foreign nations. If around 173 students who went to Ukraine have been registered with the NoRKA-Roots, the actual numbers were counted at 3,428 during the time of evacuation mission “Operation Ganga”.
Students from Kerala have gone to as many as 54 countries, including the Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea between England and Ireland, an initiative of the NoRKA-Roots has found. The exercise was launched in 2020 to bring all students who go abroad for higher studies on a single platform.
The agency began issuing student ID cards in April 2020 with a view to providing insurance coverage to students. So far, over 3,000 students have registered with the NoRKA-Roots with over 50% of the registration coming from countries such as Ukraine, China, Canada, U.K., UAE, Moldova, Russia, Georgia, Philippines, and Germany.
NoRKA Roots CEO K. Harikrishnan Namboothiri says the registration numbers indicate only a trend as the majority of students are yet to register with the agency. In fact, India is the world’s second-largest student-sending country after China with the number of Indian students abroad increasing four times in the past 14 years. It is estimated that around five lakh Indian students are abroad and Kerala is a key contributor to the student migrant pool.
“In our assumption, around 30% of the students who decide to pursue higher studies now opt for a foreign country. This necessitates an urgent policy-level intervention for the management of student migration from the State as it has a lot of social, emotional, and economic repercussions, including brain drain and reverse remittance,” says Mr. Namboothiri.
At present, there is no system in place to manage or facilitate organised student mobility both at the Centre and State levels, he says.
Now, the majority of migration is facilitated by student recruitment agencies or educational consultants, most of them without government accreditation or approval. The other is self-processed application by individuals, says Mr. Namboothiri.
Among the two, students with self-processed applications experience relatively safer mobility, although their numbers will be low. Almost all complaints regarding student mobility emerge from the migration facilitated by a third party. This demands a policy-level intervention to ensure transparency, says Mr. Namboothiri.
