Educational consultancy, Oceanic Consultants Private, has got certification from American International Recruitment Council(AIRC), enabling it to send students from India for studies in United States.
American International Recruitment Council(AIRC), which is the US certifying body for approving recruitment agencies from different countries, develop standards of ethical practice pertaining to recruitment of international students to American educational institutions, to address two constituencies — educational institutions and student recruitment agents.
Oceanic Consultants CEO Naresh Gulati said with the certification granted, they were targeting to send 200 students from India to various universities in US in the first year of operation.
Oceanic Consultants at present provides consultancy for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and United Kingdom.
Commenting on the Australian scenario, Gulati admitted the number of students moving to Australia has significantly dropped in past and is estimated to be 70 per cent down, because of Australia government changing immigration rules. As against 2,600 students sent to Australia by Oceanic Consultants in 2008, only 1,800 students were sent to Australia in 2009 following stringent norms.
Gulati, however, reiterated this was just a correction which needed to happen owing to changes in the immigration rules as the Australian government was now focusing more on providing quantity education to the overseas candidates.
To provide impetus to quality education in academic institutions of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Oceanic Consultants, in collaboration with 30 international institutions has launched a national drive “Dream Start 2011”.
As per Gulati, the programme would offer more than 35 students across India an opportunity to study at participating institutions without paying any course fee. The programme is estimated to offer course fee waivers in excess of Rs 4 crores.
“This is the first of its kind initiative in the industry where some of the leading educational institutions from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have joined hands with any agency to award Indian students complete course fee waivers at this magnitude, ” added Gulati.
Carnegie Mellon University, Flinders University, Tafe South Australia, Edith Cowan University, UTS Insearch, University of Aberdeen, University of Salford, La Trobe University, University of South Australia, University of Ballarat, Waiariki Institute of technology, UCOL and NMIT are few of partnering institutions.
Gulati revealed a highly sophisticated web based technology has been developed to manage the Dream Start programme and to make the entire process simple and transparent for the students. Using this technology, the students would be able to search for the course and institution and apply for the tuition fee waiver online — all at their convenience.
