At least 25 Indian students have been asked to return to India or find placement in other schools after Western Kentucky University in US told them that they did not meet the admission standards of the varsity.
The New York Times has reported that 60 Indian students were enrolled for the University’s Computer Science programme in January this year.
They were given ‘on-the-spot’ admissions by international recruiters in India but the chairman of the WKU’s computer science program, James Gary found that ‘almost 40’ of those students did not have required skills to get admission.
Gary said permitting the students to continue in the programme would "be throwing good money after bad" because they were unable to write computer programmes, a necessary part of the curriculum and a skill that US schools teach to undergraduates.
"If they come out of here without the ability to write programmes, that's embarrassing to my department," Gary said, explaining why the university could not permit them to continue.
Out of the 60 students, 35 may be allowed to stay but 25 ‘must leave’.
NYTimes reported that the University had hired international recruiters to lift enrolment and revenue in the wake of deep state budget cuts.
But after this, the university in a statement said it had altered its international recruitment efforts in India. The University will now send its own people from the Computer Science department to meet with students before offering admissions.
The chairman of the Indian Student Association at Western Kentucky University, Aditya Sharma told NYTimes, "I definitely feel badly for these students. They've come so far. They've invested money into it."
But he admitted that some of the students had adopted what he called a "casual" approach to their studies. "They could not meet their GPA (grade point average), so the university had to take this decision."
