NEW HORIZONS: Chief Minister Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy and Minister for Technical Education R.Chenga Reddy clap after the signing of the MoU on Tuesday as Gary Schuster of Georgia Institute of Technology looks on. - Photo: Satish H.

HYDERABAD: The State Government has entered into an understanding with the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US to facilitate it to set up offshore campuses in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.

A memorandum of understanding was signed by C. B. S. Venkataramana, principal secretary, Higher Education, and Gary Schuster, chief academic officer of the university, in the presence of Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy and Technical Education Minister R. Chenga Reddy. Describing the understanding with the university as momentous, he said 20 acres of land had been allotted for the Georgia Tech University in Hyderabad and 70 acres in Vizag for the campuses. The university is ranked fifth in the US in engineering courses and has campuses in France, China and Singapore.

High-end courses

Mr. Schuster and C. S. Rao, Advisor, Information Technology, said the university, with full-fledged infrastructure, would commence its academic schedule from 2009.

It would offer high-end courses engineering, management, sciences, architecture, computing and liberal arts at research, post-graduate and undergraduate levels. Approvals would be obtained shortly from the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). He said initially a foreign faculty would take classes but 80 per cent would be replaced by locals later.

K. C. Reddy, chairman, Andhra Pradesh State Council for Higher Education, said the State required campuses like Georgia Tech, as there was "inadequacy in high-end technology studies". B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computers, who did spade work for the MoU, was present.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail