Eighty per cent of them were following undergraduate clinical medical courses in various medical institutions in China. Officials say low tuition fee, good accommodations and classes taught in English resulted in about 8,000 Indian students coming to China.
Human Resources Minister Smriti Irani, who visited Chinese city of Qingdao during the past four days, held talks with her Chinese counterpart Yang Guiren on several issues, including a proposal for mutual recognition of academic degrees and collaboration for teacher's training.
Their discussion focused on setting up a consortium of higher educational institutions, and sharing experiences on the respective systems for ranking universities, it said. Besides medicine, the second most sought-after course for the Indian students is Chinese language and culture, the report said.
The number of Chinese students in India has remained steady, but "very low", at about 2,000 for the last few years, it said.