India should explore the export of education and medical services. There are large number of IITians and IIMites world over working in respectable positions in global organisations. Further, our Medical Professionals form a major chunk of healthcare providers in developed world.
Medical Services
We have already some good upscale hospital chains, which need to be properly marketed abroad. With Rupee depreciating significantly, the cost of Indian Medical treatment has gone down substantially in dollar terms. Moreover, the patients are often accompanied by their relatives or friends. Indian tour operators and medical establishments should develop packages to promote medical services and health tourism. The rating of the medical establishments can only improve by offering services to international clients from developed world.
Education Services
Countries like Canada, Australia hold sessions in India to offer education services to Indian students. This forms a significant part of their foreign exchange earnings. Indian Institutions like IITs and IIMs, though producing outstanding graduates holding respectable positions in global organisations are ranked high among International educational institutions. This is largely because, they are inward bound and does not cater much to international students. If India starts marketing these institutions on global scale with limited number of seats(just 5% of total strength), it can herald a new chapter in export of education services. Moreover, this can help them meet higher expenditure, which need not be passed on average Indian student.
May be, this can lead to another chapter to our services exports after IT and IT-enabled services.
Medical Services
We have already some good upscale hospital chains, which need to be properly marketed abroad. With Rupee depreciating significantly, the cost of Indian Medical treatment has gone down substantially in dollar terms. Moreover, the patients are often accompanied by their relatives or friends. Indian tour operators and medical establishments should develop packages to promote medical services and health tourism. The rating of the medical establishments can only improve by offering services to international clients from developed world.
Education Services
Countries like Canada, Australia hold sessions in India to offer education services to Indian students. This forms a significant part of their foreign exchange earnings. Indian Institutions like IITs and IIMs, though producing outstanding graduates holding respectable positions in global organisations are ranked high among International educational institutions. This is largely because, they are inward bound and does not cater much to international students. If India starts marketing these institutions on global scale with limited number of seats(just 5% of total strength), it can herald a new chapter in export of education services. Moreover, this can help them meet higher expenditure, which need not be passed on average Indian student.
May be, this can lead to another chapter to our services exports after IT and IT-enabled services.
On the medical front, we see substantial part of the clients in the quality healthcare institutions in Kolkata is from Bangladesh. while this is a good sign, certainly we should look for patients from the so called developed nations.
ReplyDeleteOn the education front, the quality of education provided at the IITs and IIMs can compete with the best in the international arena. Appropriate marketing strategy, as suggested, may spread global acceptability of our institutions.
We need adequate number of medical colleges to produce sufficient number of medical professionals to support our healthcare institutions. While the infrastructure like library and laboratories are compulsory, faculty shortage can be mitigated by use of technology like video conferencing. We learn about virtual classes taken up by private coaching institutes. These can be used in our higher education institutes too.
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