The turmoil in Afghanistan may push the aspirations of several students from there who hoped to pursue higher education in India into limbo.
The crisis could not have come at a more inopportune time. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), an autonomous body under the Ministry of External Affairs that has been providing scholarships and facilitating admissions of foreign students, has been processing applications for enrolment to Indian universities for the new academic year.
Like some other States, Kerala has been witnessing an increase in the number of Afghans enrolling for various programmes in higher education institutions during the last few years. As many as 38 Afghan students and researchers had joined the universities in Kerala last year. Among them, the highest enrolment was recorded in Mahatma Gandhi University. In all, 64 students pursue various courses in the State presently.
“There were high chances that the number would have gone up this year, considering that applicants were permitted to submit five options for preferred universities in place of the three that were provided until last year,” says K. Ayyanar, regional director, ICCR, Thiruvananthapuram.
The tentative lists of eligible students prepared by universities were sent to the Indian Embassy in Kabul recently. The council provide 1,000 scholarships to Afghan students every year.
Anxious moments
Mustafa Salimi (27), a first-year MBA student at the Institute of Management in Kerala (IMK), struggled to prepare for his first-semester Kerala University examination on Monday with disheartening news trickling in from his home town in Kabul.
With telecom services down in Afghanistan, Mustafa’s family has been relying on a weak internet connectivity to contact him through WhatsApp. “We do not know how long we will be able to communicate, considering the volatile situation back home. They have not been able to leave the house or purchase essentials from the market. The entire country has been locked down,” he laments.
With the education system in Afghanistan in tatters, he appealed to the Government of India to provide the Afghan youth with more opportunities to study in the country.
Another Afghan, who has been pursuing MSc Computer Science at the university’s Karyavattom campus, feared for his family, which has been stranded in the Helmand province that was captured by the Taliban over a week ago.
“Unfortunately, we do not have a government that took responsibility of its citizens. We lost a chance to repair the country during the last 20 years and prevent another resurgence of the Taliban forces,” he said, requesting anonymity “in order to ensure my family remained safe.”
