HYDERABAD: The mountains of Nepal are beckoning Nirupama Bashyal back home. After studying for four years in India, Bashyal, an MBA student of the Osmania University, is longing for homemade food and is all set to return. What she is going to take back from here is a certificate from the Osmania University, which she believes, will give her an edge over her peers in Nepal.As many as 3,361 foreign students will be securing a degree from the University this year. The highest number of students are from Sudan (586), followed by Yemen (345), Afghanistan (286) and other countries. The university Foreign Relations Office organised a degree award ceremony 2010-11 for foreign students here on Monday.Wedad Mohammed from Sudan, who completed B Sc in Genetics from the university, says Indian university certificates carry much value in his country. She coupled her degree with a certificate course in forensics offered by OU and now, is looking for a job in the police force back home. In the three years she stayed in Hyderabad, Mohammed picked up basic Telugu which helps her follow colloquial conversation. She went to the Charminar every week for shopping and now, has a good collection of sarees and burqas to take back for her and her relatives. Abdi Fetah (Ethiopia) and Abdi Shakur (Somalia), both BCom students, have decided to stay back in the city for a while longer and complete MBA. They have already enrolled themselves in JNTU. They would love to secure a job here but prospects look grim in India for them as foreign nationals. UAE and the US are two places where they hope to settle down. But the picture wasn’t all that perfect. Mohammed Rasool who joined OU for post-graduation in Sociology says Hyderabad, the city, was his university and not Osmania. The methodology of teaching did not go down well with him. He feels lecturers govern the classroom with little left to say for the students. An Afghan national, Rasool finds that the Central University of Kabul is more accommodative! However, what he came for was to learn Sociology and has not been disappointed. “I chose India because of the curious mix of cultures here. I learnt a lot about Sociology by the diverse culture in Hyderabad. I managed to study what I wanted to,” he says. Recollecting how people expressed suspicion the moment he said he was from Afghanistan, he says he could not find a place to stay in Mumbai because of the stereotyped perception about his country. “It was late night and I needed a place to stay. When I went to a lodge in Mumbai, they checked my passport and refused accommodation.” He takes this in his stride. It is not people’s fault. It is the fault of the social situation and political atmosphere, he shrugs. Results in 45 daysOU vice-chancellor S Satyanarayana on Monday promised foreign students that from the ensuing academic year, results would be announced within 45 days of the exams. He also announced that many more short-term certificate courses would be introduced so that the students could take extra credits with them at the end of their stay in the city.The students appealed to the vice-chancellor to ensure that results are announced on time as any delay would pose the problem of visa extension. Explaining the problem, Koshan Giap Wijdan, president of Foreign Students’ Association said several students left in a hurry this year as they had got a job or scholarship in another country even while the university was taking its own time to declare results. “Several middle-eastern countries and North African students will have come here by taking leave from their jobs back home. If they don’t go back on time, they risk losing jobs. Also, we cannot apply for PhD or any other university without exam results. Students will not be able to get admissions anywhere but in OU if the results are announced three months after the final exams in May,” he said.
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