Several of these universities are preparing their MoUs for the collaborations, UGC chief M Jagadesh Kumar said. “These processes involve discussions and approvals within the university statutory bodies. Therefore, let us give them time to work on these matters,” he added.
At least 49 overseas universities have expressed interest to collaborate with Indian universities academically, University Grants Commission (UGC) chief M Jagadesh Kumar said on Sunday.
Several of these universities are preparing their MoUs for the collaborations, Kumar said. “The UGC is proactively contacting these universities. Several universities are in the process of preparing the MoUs. These processes involve discussions and approvals within the university’s statutory bodies. Therefore, let us give them time to work on these matters,” he said.
In May, India’s higher education regulator had allowed academic collaborations between Indian and foreign higher education institutions to offer three types of degree programmes — dual (where both colleges award the degree in the same subject), and joint and twinning (where part of the course is completed overseas with the upper limit being 30% in twinning programmes and the lower limit being 30% in joint programmes).
The regulator has also identified 230 Indian and 1,256 foreign higher education institutions that fulfil the eligibility criteria for these collaborations.
The foreign universities that have approached the commission expressing interest in such collaborations include Michigan State University, the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, Heidelberg University, the University of Newcastle in Australia, the University of Birmingham, Queen Mary University of London, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Paris-1 University, Karaganda University in Kazakhstan, Universiti Malaya in Malaysia, the University of Lodz in Poland, and Haifa University in Israel, among others, according to the UGC.
The regulator’s move of involving Indian envoys to 63 countries in May to seek support to facilitate these academic collaborations has helped in boosting the outreach, Kumar said.
“The Indian envoys conveyed our recent regulations to the universities of the concerned countries. We received positive responses from countries like the US, the UK, Australia, Germany, Malaysia and Singapore,” he said. “The communication from our Indian missions abroad helped boost the outreach.”
As many as 48 Indian universities have either started academic collaborations with foreign institutes or are in the advanced stages of finalising agreements, HT reported on September 19.
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