Internationalisation Of Higher Education: NITI Aayog’s Roadmap For Viksit Bharat @2047
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NITI Aayog | Ministry of Education | University Grants Commission (UGC) | AICTE
The NITI Aayog report (December 2025) titled ‘Internationalisation of Higher Education in India - PROSPECTS, POTENTIAL, AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS’ outlines a transformative roadmap to restore India’s historic position as a global center of learning, reminiscent of ancient institutions like Nalanda and Takshashila. Guided by NEP 2020, the strategy prioritizes “Internationalisation at Home” to address critical imbalances. While India sent 13.36 lakh students abroad in 2024, it hosted fewer than 50,000 international students, leading to a significant economic loss (USD 3.4 billion in annual outward remittances) and a localized “brain drain”.
A central pillar of this strategy is the proposed "Tagore Framework," a multilateral academic mobility system modeled after Europe's Erasmus+ and named after Asia’s first Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore.
The roadmap identifies leading HEIs (Top 100 NIRF and INIs) as the primary engines for this shift. By leveraging India’s cost advantage, English-medium instruction, and expertise in STEAM3 (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, Medicine, and Management), the report targets hosting 1.5 lakh international students by 2030 and 8 lakh by 2047.
Key pillars of this roadmap include:
Academic Mobility & Talent Attraction: Scaling initiatives like GIAN, VAJRA, and SPARC to attract global faculty and researchers.
Institutional Frameworks: Establishing International Branch Campuses (IBCs) in India (e.g., GIFT City) and expanding Indian offshore campuses (e.g., IIT Madras in Zanzibar).
Research Collaborations: Closing the gap in international research partnerships, which currently stands at 24.2%, lower than many advanced economies.
Structured Collaborations: Utilizing twinning, joint, and dual degree programs as low-cost, high-impact tools for curriculum internationalisation.
What is the “Tagore Framework” proposed for regional academic mobility? The Tagore Framework is a proposed multilateral academic mobility system, modeled after the European Erasmus+ program. It is designed to facilitate systematic student and faculty exchanges, mutual credit recognition, and eased visa processes across regional groupings like ASEAN, BIMSTEC, and BRICS. By institutionalizing these exchanges, India seeks to create a “Global South” education corridor that mirrors the integration found in the European Higher Education Area.
Policy Relevance: The 2047 Roadmap
The report offers 22 policy recommendations across five thematic areas to catalyze India’s educational diplomacy:
Strategic Sovereignty: Establishing an Inter-Ministerial Task Force to coordinate a unified national strategy for internationalisation.
Regulatory Simplification: Implementing a National Foreign Degree Equivalence Portal and a specialized G20 Researcher Visa to eliminate administrative bottlenecks.
Innovative Campus Models: Permitting a “Campus Within a Campus” model with a 10-year sunset clause, allowing foreign universities to co-locate with Indian HEIs using brownfield infrastructure.
Financial Resilience: Establishing a National Research Sovereign Wealth Impact Fund to provide long-term funding for high-impact global research.
Global Branding: Revamping the “Study in India” (SII) portal into a student-centric, “one-stop solution” for the entire international student lifecycle.
Cultural Integration: Mainstreaming the Bharatiya Gyan Parampara (Indian Knowledge Systems) and IKS modules into global curricula to enhance intellectual visibility.
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