The ancient education system in India, right from the era of Rigveda, has been promoting the holistic development of students. Focus on self-reliance, discipline, truthfulness, and maintaining a balance between nature and human beings, is what has been the core of our country’s education policies. This is the reason why the concept of global universities, like Takshashila, Nalanda, Vikramshila, and Vallabhi (among various others) emerged in India, making these knowledge hubs, the most important centres of learning for thousands of students from the entire world.
 Subjects, like Economics, Book-keeping, Medicine, Buddhism, Samkhya, Vedas, Sanskrit, Grammar, Logic etc. were taught to the students through lectures, discussions and debates. In short, we had the highest standards of multidisciplinary education in our country since the ancient period. But, there came a time when invaders (Islamic rulers and Britishers) from different countries, visited India, and in the name of religion, massacred the future of the youth then. Even after independence, the bombardment of public universities with their not-so-progressive curriculum, degraded the level of education, in comparison to that in ancient times.
 Though over time, the higher education system in India progressed a lot and gave our country big names, like APJ Abdul Kalam, Ratan Tata, Verghese Kurien, etc., it still lagged, concerning the global education standards.
 But, not anymore. Thanks to the internationalization of higher education in India through NEP (National Education Policy) 2020. NEP 2020 aims to maximise the potential of the students by providing them with holistic, integrated, and multidisciplinary learning opportunities.    
 It proposes to replace the traditional 10+2 education system with a 5+3+3+4 structure. As far as higher education is concerned, NEP took a bold move to revive the prevalent education system during the ancient period and create well-rounded scholars across multiple disciplines.
 What is Internationalization?
 Internationalization is the process of creating global citizens by promoting cross-cultural and intercultural interactions. This process works on framing a course curriculum that has a universal application.  Also, it aims at producing and disseminating knowledge to enhance international academic credibility. This could be initiated regarding global faculty and student exchange, international collaboration in training programmes, semester exchange, partnerships, scholarships, research, and dual degrees. In the context of the National Education Policy, internationalization aims at making some serious structural policy reforms in the traditional education system.
NEP and its Focus on Internationalization
 NEP is set to create global immersion programmes through a new legislative framework. This implies that foreign universities will be allowed to open their branches in India and vice versa. According to reports, the number of international students coming to India for higher studies is always lesser than the number of students going abroad for higher education. For instance, in 2021, only 23,439 students visited India for higher studies. On the contrary, the number of Indian students abroad exceeded 71,000 in 2021 (according to an immigration report published online). This shows the urgent need to work on internationalization reforms in India.
  Efforts are being made, to attract international students, wherein, the policy has provisions for simplifying internship and visa policies, offering quality yet affordable education, encouraging global research and scholarship partnerships, allocating funds for framing courses designed for worldwide students, and finally making agreements on credit transfer for the recognition of degrees in a mutual manner. The Indian government is also focussing on signing MoUs with other governments to promote its ‘Study in India initiative’ and providing support to international students for short-term educational programmes.
 At the same time, NEP’s internationalization policy focuses on promoting and exchanging our country’s cultural heritage, value-based education, and Indian system of medicine (like naturopathy, Ayurveda, and yoga) across different countries.
 According to Education Gurus, adopting internationalization will bring great benefits for India, as this would increase the number of inbound students from both the neighbouring and other developed countries. Since India has a very minimal cost- of living in comparison to that of foreign countries, more international students will be interested to visit India for higher education. Additionally, to ensure that foreign students get a smooth international study experience in our home nation, several international offices will be set up for their convenience.
 In simple words, internationalization under NEP solely aims toward evolving India as a premium ‘Study Destination’ on an international scale. We, as Indian citizens, are proud to say that our country is soon going to achieve the highest global standards in the education sector through NEP 2020. We can visualize the day when immigration reports will suggest a huge surge in the number of domestic and international students, undertaking various higher education programmes in India.