Distance Learning in India to get easier for International students, new amendments by the UGC

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently amended the guidelines for Open and Distance Learning Programmes and Online Programmes in India, allowing foreign students to easily enroll in Indian universities. This particular amendment will permit international students with expired passports to enroll at Indian universities via the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Prior to this, foreign students had to mandatorily provide valid passports for identification to enroll themselves in any Indian university.

International students who wish to take advantage of this amendment should enroll themselves via e-VidyaBharati Portal and seek admission through MEA. These students will then be exempted from mandatorily producing passports and can be enrolled with any national identity proof containing their photograph.

This e-VidyaBharati project of the Ministry of External Affairs, seeks to provide tele-education services to African countries. The Ministry of External Affairs is also offering scholarships to African students under the scheme of e-VidyaBharati (tele-education) project. This particular project aims to offer a minimum of 15000 scholarships to African students within a span of 5 years. Speaking about the amendment, UGC Chairman Prof. M Jagadesh Kumar said, “The Second Amendment Regulations, 2022 changes the compulsory identifier ‘Passport’ for International students to ‘any national Identity with photograph’ of the country of residence for the admissions through MEA in UGC recognized/entitled Online Programmes.”

“This Amendment is expected to improve the number of enrolments of the international learners in online programmes through projects of the Ministry of External Affair,” he further mentioned.