Dataset · Education
Foreign nationals enrolled in Indian higher education by country and level of study, and by programme, by sex, from the AISHE final reports, 2011-12 to 2023-24
The first 5 of 48,954 rows
| period | period_type | geo_level | geo_code | geo_name | table_id | title | topic | breakdown | mode | line_no | row_no | category | subcategory | row_type | measure | value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | academic_year | country | IN | India | 16 | Table 16. Country-wise & Level-wise Foreign Students (based on actual response) | foreign_students | country | all | 1 | NEPAL | item | Certificate | Female | 1.0 | ||
| 2011-12 | academic_year |
Foreign nationals enrolled in Indian universities, colleges and standalone institutions, from two national tables of the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) final reports for 2011-12 to 2015-16 and 2019-20 to 2023-24: students by country of origin and level of study (Ph.D., M.Phil., postgraduate, undergraduate, PG diploma, diploma, certificate, integrated), and students by programme, each by male, female and total. Each row is one report year, table, country or programme, and column. Foreign enrolment rose from 33,151 in 2011-12 to 58,134 in 2023-24, from 173 countries in the latest year; Nepal sends the most (13,999), followed by the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Bangladesh and Nigeria. Use it to see where India's foreign students come from and what they study; foreign students by state (including Kerala) are in PRI-EDU-0025.
1. Downloaded the AISHE final report Excel workbook for each year (he.nic.in/aishereport/assets/excel/<year>.xlsx; 2011-12 to 2015-16 from the Wayback Machine's copies of the Ministry of Education's workbooks) and kept it unchanged; these are the same files as PRI-EDU-0025. 2. Read the country-wise (Table 16) and programme-wise (Table 18) foreign student sheets with PRI's category-table reader: it finds the 'Country Name' or 'Programme' heading, flattens the column headings into measures (level | sex), keeps only the publisher's numbered columns (2011-12 has percentage columns beside the counts, left out) and stops at the Grand Total row (2011-12 repeats some countries below it). 3. Checked that the country and programme rows add up to the Grand Total row in every year.
No workbooks exist for 2016-17 to 2018-19 (PDF only), so the series has a gap. Country names are as printed in capitals and not harmonised across years (for example 'UNITED STATES' up to 2020-21 and 'UNITED STATES OF AMERICA' from 2021-22). Programme names are as printed. Figures are 'based on actual response': foreign students at institutions that did not respond to AISHE are missing. The country and programme tables count the same students, so do not add them. Measures differ between the two tables: the country table is split by level of study, the programme table only by sex. line_no is a row's position in that year's table, not a code: join years on category (the publish check's year-on-year warnings compare lines and can be ignored).
| Column | Label | Description | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
period | Release period | Period of the source release this row comes from (edition year, academic year, month or capture year) | |
period_type | Release period type | year, academic_year, quarter or month | |
geo_level | Geography level | country (every row is for India as a whole) | |
geo_code | Geography code | IN (India) |
Please cite this dataset when you use it:
Policy and Research Initiative (2026). Foreign students in Indian higher education by country of origin, level and programme, AISHE 2011-12 to 2023-24 (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Original data: Ministry of Education, Government of India (Department of Higher Education). /data/aishe-foreign-students-by-country-programme-india
| country |
| IN |
| India |
| 16 |
| Table 16. Country-wise & Level-wise Foreign Students (based on actual response) |
| foreign_students |
| country |
| all |
| 1 |
| NEPAL |
| item |
| Certificate | Male |
| 2.0 |
| 2011-12 | academic_year | country | IN | India | 16 | Table 16. Country-wise & Level-wise Foreign Students (based on actual response) | foreign_students | country | all | 1 | NEPAL | item | Certificate | Total | 3.0 |
| 2011-12 | academic_year | country | IN | India | 16 | Table 16. Country-wise & Level-wise Foreign Students (based on actual response) | foreign_students | country | all | 1 | NEPAL | item | Diploma | Female | 131.0 |
| 2011-12 | academic_year | country | IN | India | 16 | Table 16. Country-wise & Level-wise Foreign Students (based on actual response) | foreign_students | country | all | 1 | NEPAL | item | Diploma | Male | 67.0 |
geo_name | Area | India |
table_id | AISHE table number | Table number in that year's AISHE final report, with the sub-letter of the sheet (11b). Numbers move between years, so follow a series by topic, breakdown and mode |
title | Table title | Title of the AISHE table as printed in the workbook |
topic | Topic | foreign_students (enrolment of foreign nationals) |
breakdown | Rows are | country (Table 16, by country of origin) or programme (Table 18) |
mode | Mode of study | all (the foreign student tables are not split by mode) |
line_no | Line | Position of the row in the table (1 = first row under the headings), so rows read in the published order |
row_no | Serial number | Row number printed in the table |
category | Country or programme | Country of origin or programme as printed; 'Grand Total' or 'All India' on total rows |
subcategory | Subject | Not used in these tables (always blank) |
row_type | Row type | item (one country or programme) or total (the Grand Total row) |
measure | Measure | Column of the table, headings joined by ' | ': level and sex in the country table ('Under Graduate | Female', 'Grand Total | Total'), sex in the programme table |
value | Students | Number of students, as published | persons |
