The Hindu : Courses in varsity to attract foreign students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 17, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Courses in varsity to attract foreign students

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, FEB.16. The International Centre of the University of Madras, which will focus on efforts to promote Indian higher education abroad, is working on specific courses to attract foreign learners.

A meeting of the University's Syndicate held last week, resolved that C.T. Indira, Professor and Head of the Department of English, would co-ordinate the designing of post graduate, certificate and short term courses, S.P. Thyagarajan, Vice Chancellor, said. The courses are expected to begin in July.

The Vice Chancellor will also chair the International Centre, while R. Balasubramanian, senior Professor, will be its director. Its Students Affairs coordinator will be Dr. Susheela Mariappan.

The University Grants Commission (UGC), under a specific mandate, is helping a select group of universities and higher education institutions to promote Indian higher education abroad.

It is compiling those courses which each of the selected universities is planning to offer. All them would be publicised at a fair of the NAFSA (Association of International Educators) to be held at Baltimore, Maryland (United States), in May. The NAFSA 2004 Conference is touted as "the largest and most important gathering of international educators, administrators, policy experts, and leaders in the world."

The Madras and Anna Universities from Chennai would participate in the NAFSA Fair.

"We are also working on offering short-term courses of two semesters, specifically tailored for a Study India programme for foreign students. But that will have to be in the form of tie-ups with individual universities, so that it is part of an exchange programme. It will also facilitate students of a partnering university to transfer their credits after completing the courses here. These courses will depend on the needs of the foreign universities," Dr. Thyagarajan added.

He said the Anna and Madras Universities would start working jointly to start the National Institute of Sciences (as announced in the Assembly by the Finance Minister as part of the State Budget).

The fully UGC funded institute would provide high-end basic science under graduate and post graduate programs from the coming year.

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