Hyderabad: Stipend, internship issues haunt foreign students

Osmania University: Despite various facilities extended to foreign students, the youth from foreign shores are still facing some problems due to language barrier and academic discrimination. They rue that authorities are not paying heed to their concerns the way they should.

Appreciating the facilities provided to them,Sphamandla Luvuno, ICCR scholar from South Africa and President of Telangana Foreign Students Association (TFSA), who is a PG student at Osmania University (OU), points to some issues such as 'deliberately' giving foreign students backlogs. "Some university authorities don't take foreign students complains seriously.They simply ignore our grievances without any consideration," Luvuno added.

Mohammad Yousuf Khanmerzoi, President of Afghan Students Association (ASA), who pursues Bachelor of Business Administration at OU, is grateful to ICCR for providing the opportunity. He wants the authorities to ensure stipends on time, which affects the academic life of students.

Nawab Najaf Ali Khan, son of Prince Nawab Hasham Jah Bahadur and grandson of H.E.H. late Nawab Sir Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur Nizam VII, occasionally meets students and hears their grievances and takes them up. "When students are away from home, most of them feel alone and get home sick. They need local support and guidance. From the perspective of humanity, we along with the government should check on the well-being of the students." he observes. He urges authorities to be considerate to the foreign students, thereby ensuring their physical and mental wellbeing."

For the engineering students at OU lack of internship is a matter of concern. They deplore that most of construction companies are not facilitating internships, especially after the Covid-19 outbreak.

When contacted, the General Director of ICCR- HYD, Y L Rao, said that the stipend date of payment is tenth of every month.But this time due to change in accounting policy called 'Payments through PFMS', ICCR-HYD had to prepare the data and process it as per its guidelines, which resulted in delays. He assured that this would not recur from next month."ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations) is bearing all costs. Just food expenses need to be borne. Still they (students) continuously complain.We are paying quite handsome amount and the cost of living is low here.Still they can't manage," he opined.