Some 7,000 Iranian students are now studying in Indian universities. A part of their problems is related to the conditions inside Iran while the rest attributed to the Indian laws and academic procedures.
Most of the Iranian students are studying at universities of Poona, Bangalore, Heydar Abad, Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigar and Allah Abad.
The Iranian parliamentary delegation spoke with the students in New Delhi, Heydar Abad and Mumbai.
Yet, the Iranian medical science students who are faced with more problems are still waiting for a visit by a Health Ministry delegation, which was earlier scheduled for last fall, to survey conditions in the Indian universities.
The Iranian medical, dentistry, and pharmacology students studying in India comprise half of the Iranian students in this country. Ranking of the Indian universities by Iran has led to lots of related debates.
The Iranian Scientific Attaché Ali A'azam Khosravi believes a visit to India by the Iranian Health Ministry officials might change the ratings of some universities of those students.
Many Iranian students in India have no hope for approval of the credibility of the university degrees upon return to Iran by the Science Ministry.
There are various reasons such as not being approved of the university, or the major of studies for refraining to confirm the validity of their university degrees.
For instance, studying Persian literature in Indian universities is not allowed for the Iranian students in Iranian Science Ministry regulations.
The subjects that the students choose for completing their dissertations, too, are among the problematic issues. A foreign student might think that a comparative study related with his mother country will be approved of according to the laws there. That is while the Iranian ministries have during the course of the recent years forbidden comparative studies, or considered very tough conditions for approving of them.
Elaborating the reasons behind such restrictions for the Indian professors, too, is another difficulty.
Issuance of visas for students, especially for the PhD students has certain problems. The Indian Embassy in Iran offers a very limited number of scholarships to the Iranian students. Yet, there is no answering system, or appropriate and systematic way of informing the applicants for such scholarships.
Also the PhD students after completion of the required documents that takes a few weeks need to wait for long periods for receiving their visas that can even take up to two years.
The Indian officials sometimes agree with the Iranian officials' requests for issuance of instant visas for a period of time, but issuance of the student visas still remains an unresolved problem.
According to the Iranian scientific attaché, the Iranian students in India are majoring in 64 fields in basic, technological, engineering, medial, dentistry, and artistic sciences.
The portion of the Iranian students in India has during the course of the recent years decreased drastically due to the existence of the abovementioned and a number of other problems so that it has reached half its number compared to a decade ago.
Lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Indian government for accepting these students is one factor and more problems for the Iranian students in India compared with those who go to other countries is another one.
But eventually, the status that these students expect to achieve after graduation and they do not succeed in doing so is the straw that breaks the camel's back.
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