CREATING THE GLOBALCAMPUS

Roadmap For Overseas Campuses Of Indian Universities

    The Centre has fashioned a 16-member committee comprising administrators of seven IITs and vice-chancellors of 4 central universities to arrange a roadmap on the demand “from various quarters” to permit abroad campuses” of Indian universities. The growth comes on the again of IIT Delhi’s proposal to open centers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The committee, chaired by Dr. K Radhakrishnan of the IIT Council Standing Committee, has been given until March 17 to “present a framework/structure for the opening of campuses abroad by Higher Education Institutes after analyzing the existing rules for the opening of offshore campuses.’’

    The committee is required to come up with the administrative, financial, and legal framework of the proposed overseas campuses. The proposals, including IIT Delhi's, will be presented before the committee. The committee members include directors of seven IITs — Mumbai, Delhi, Kharagpur, Madras, Kanpur, Guwahati, Dhanbad — and the vice-chancellors of Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Banaras Hindu University, University of Hyderabad, and the Director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

    The proposals, together with that of IIT Delhi, will likely be positioned earlier than the committee. Among the highlights of IIT Delhi’s proposed abroad campuses are four-year undergraduate programs, annual consumption of as much as 240 college students in 4 branches primarily based on SAT scores, and campuses unfold over 100 acres which can be near main cities with good air connectivity. The premier engineering faculty’s proposal marks its second try and broaden overseas. Its earlier try and arrange an analysis academy in Mauritius beneath a settlement with the Mauritius Research Council had run into an argument in 2014 following objections raised by then Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani.

    According to the structure outlined by IIT-D, the proposed campuses — which will be headed by directors appointed by the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Delhi centre — in Saudi Arabia and Egypt will have to be financially supported by stakeholders based in those countries, including their governments, the industry or philanthropic donors. “The campus would admit 60 students in each discipline each year and this would imply 240 students in each cohort and roughly 1,000 students and 60 faculty members on campus after 4 years,” says the IIT-D proposal. Students will spend their final year of the course in the Delhi campus, it adds. Of the total faculty members, 60 per cent are proposed to be either Saudi-based or from Egypt. The recruitment of teachers, who will be expected to spend one semester every three years at the India campus, will be carried out by IIT Delhi. Last year, the Centre had issued guidelines allowing institutions of eminence, such as IIT Delhi, to open overseas campuses after acquiring the Ministry of Education's approval and no-objection certificates from the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs. This was in line with the National Education Policy.