DU becoming popular among Asian students

new delhi: the delhi university is increasingly becoming popular among students from southeast asian countries like vietnam, korea, thailand, china and indonesia. earlier the varsity was more popular with students from africa and neighbouring countries. vietnam leads the pack with a tally of 70, while korea follows with around 35 students. there are about eight chinese students enrolled in du, while africa and west asia form the other major chunk of the 1,300 overseas students hailing from 55-odd countries.of the 550 new admissions every year, 75 per cent are enrolled at the undergraduate level. while students from vietnam, thailand and korea show more interest in religion, culture and philosophy, those from the middle east and africa have a proclivity for accounting, business economics and management. take, for instance, the course in buddhist studies. "over 40 per cent of the vietnamese students are enrolled in this course," said university officials. interestingly, there are more than 10 vietnamese enrolled in a certificate course in hindi. "these students prefer to come here, gauge the conditions and enrol in the linguistics course while preparing to take admission in a degree course the next year," said foreign students' advisor a s narag. but what is making these students head towards india? "it is the fantastic combination of cost and quality. students also get to practise their english," narag said. students agree. "i was thinking of going to the us but it was unaffordable. here the fee is low and the quality is good," said ahmed ali mohammed who has just taken admission in a phd programme with the faculty of management studies and is a self-financing scholar. kachayan sraman, a bangladeshi pursuing mphil in buddhist studies, added: "it is easy to adjust since the culture is not very different. plus the education is cheap." so far three chinese students have done their management from du and are successfully employed by multi-national companies in their country, narag said. another student is enrolled at present. the low cost of studies here has helped india beat mauritius and emerge as the cheaper option in the south asian region, narag said. what could cost a foreign student about $6,000 in mauritius, costs only $2,000 in india. and compared to education costs in the us, which can easily cost upto $14,000, india is definitely a prudent choice. a one-time registration cost of $300 to the university for an undergraduate course plus 100 dollars per year to the institution in which the student gains admission. "this comes to 600 dollars for three years, which is peanuts compared to education expenses in western countries," officials said. the registration fee for a masters course is $400 and $500 for mphil and phd. but then this is only part of the bargain. "students find their stay in india useful for improving and practising their english. by the time they go back, most of them are fluent in the language," narag added.