In a first of its kind initiative, India is all set to open educational institutions like elite IIT, IIM, National law School and prestigious Indian School of Business (ISB) abroad. Qatar is likely to be the first destination to have such centre of excellence in Asia under India’s twinning arrangement system.
Sources said that HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju is expected to make a brief presentation in this regard to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday in the presence of Finance Minister P Chidambaram. As of now, only a couple of private educational institutions and a few CBSE-affiliated schools have
opened their branches in Dubai and Muscat.
A high-level delegation from Qatar is likely to visit India shortly and deliberate the viability of establishment of elite institutions.
Ministerial sources said that Chidambaram discussed the issue with Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani on an official visit to Qatar last month. The Emir is reported to have renewed his country’s interest in opening of prestigious educational institutions at Qatar.
The idea to open India’s best engineering, management and legal institutions was first mooted by Qatar during the Emir’s visit to India in April 2012. “From India’s point of view, the move will impart fresh momentum to the friendly ties and growing bilateral cooperation between India and Qatar. In the long run this is also being perceived as gas diplomacy,” said a HRD Ministry source.
Chidambaram was in the West Asian country to seek investments on various sectors, but Qatar reportedly expressed its interest in setting up the world class infrastructure for an IIT, IIM, a NlS and ISB and academic quality will be imparted by India.
Presently private institutions like IMT, Ghaziabad and BITS Pilani have their extended branches in West Asian countries. India’s only private university Amity University has earned the credit of offering management programmes from multiple foreign cities —including Dubai, Singapore, london and Romania campuses. "We are the only university able to open full-fledged university porgrammes unlike others who have their study or extended centres in other
countries," said Savita Mehta, vice-president (Corporate Communication), Amity University.
The Indian Government has, through notification, allowed top 500 universities across the world to start courses in India through twinning arrangement. The move to open elite institutions abroad may be seen as a crucial decision to take global the country’s technical and management studies.
According to UGC, “twinning” is an arrangement by an Indian university or institution with a foreign institution or university to offer academic programmes either jointly or independently. With uncertainty over the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill, 2010, in the Rajya Sabha, the UGC Draft Regulations on twinning arrangement last year paved the way for educational courses to be offered by the foreign universities in India and vice-versa from forthcoming academic session.