| |9 APRIL 2024HIGHERReviewmobility with the recent changes made to the immigra-tion policies. These changes not only help internation-al students to stay and work in the country for 18 more months, but it also helps students with sufficient employ-ment contracts and German language skills to have access to long-term work visas as well as permanent residency. Transnational Education (TNE) to Improve RelationsTNE or Transnational Education can be referred to those programs or educational services in which the student is located in a different country than the one where the awarding educational institution is located in. When compared to countries like the UK, the US, and Aus-tralia, German higher education institutions are new to offering cross-border higher education. With that said, according to the German Academic Exchange Service - DAAD, as of now, German universities offer more than 250 programs in 30 plus countries to nearly 33,000 stu-dents. One facet that makes German TNEs unique from many others is the fact that it is part of a long-term inter-nationalization strategy from the German government. And these cross-border partnerships are not only viewed as a method to increase the global competitiveness of Ger-man higher education institutions but it is also used as a development aid to support the academic capacity build-ing in other countries. Indian Students in GermanyChina is the largest international student market for Ger-many with more than 40,000 Chinese students enrolling in German higher education institutions recently. India is the second largest sender of international students to Germany with over 28,000 Indian students pursuing their higher education in Germany in 2022. While the number of Chinese students in Germany is increasing, In-dian student numbers are clocking in the most growth re-cently and between 2016 and 2019, the number of Indian students in Germany has doubled. The plethora of STEM education opportunities coupled with the lower cost of higher education can be seen as the two major reasons which makes Germany an appealing higher education des-tination for Indian students. Aside from that, over the last decade, according to a research published by the Institute of International Education (IIE), there has been a signif-icant rise in the number of English-taught programs in Germany which has also helped the country to become an attractive higher education option for aspiring inter-national students. As a strategy to further accelerate the flow of international students, DAAD has come up with an initiative - `internationalization through digitalization'. The primary aim of this initiative will be to promote academic mobility though digital learning platforms, as well as webinars and online portals to match aspiring students with academic institutions. Aside from this, the German government is systematically promoting the country as a modern-day international science hub and many large scale funding are made as a part of this strategy. With all this, Germany is aiming to increase their presence in the global higher education space and continue their growth trajectory as a premier international study abroad destination.
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