In order to give a boost to the UGC twinning initiative in the Indian education system, nearly 48 foreign universities have shown interest in the UGC’s twinning, joint degree and dual degree programmes between Indian and foreign universities.
The University of Glasgow, Scotland, expressed its interest in discussing the potential for academic collaboration, while the Deakin University, Australia, has also shown interest in the new twinning system of UGC. The Deakin University spokesperson further stated that India's higher education regulator stated that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is a progressive policy that would help the university establish new relations with Indian institutions.
The UGC notified its regulations and gave permission for the Indian universities to collaborate with their foreign counterparts to offer joint, twinning or dual degrees. Under the new regulations, students will be able to earn a dual degree conferred by Indian and foreign higher educational institutions, separately and simultaneously.
The University of Queensland, Australia, is meeting UGC officials in August for potential collaboration. According to the sources one university from France has committed to set up a satellite centre in India soon. The University of Tokyo has also shown interest in the UGC twinning programme. The University of Cambridge has been positive to UGC’s twinning programme.
The Bangor University, Wales, stated that it’s a good time for further collaborations with UGC initiatives, while the SOAS University of London stated that it is looking forward towards collaborations with the UGC as per the new regulations. On the other hand, officials from University of Manchester are visiting India this week to meet the UGC head to discuss UGC Policy and support for twinning arrangements. The UGC officials further stated that similar responses were received from Universität Jena, Germany and Durban University of Technology, South Africa and are eager to collaborate with UGC twinning programmes.
Mr Jagadeesh Kumar, Chairperson of UGC stated that the students from our educational institutions who had gone abroad have done extremely well and the foreign universities know that we impart high quality education and many foreign universities are eager to start the twinning courses in collaboration with UGC.
He further added that foreign universities like Stanford and MIT are looking to set up campuses in India and this has further boosted our efforts to get positive response for our twinning courses. The advantage for these top universities for setting up campuses here, is that we have permitted them to offer undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and train the students so that they can join PhD programmes either in India or abroad.
According to the UGC officials, the UGC chairperson MÂ Jagadeesh Kumar, will be meeting the ambassadors of the interested countries, starting with Australia from next week to further the discussions and is likely to ink a MoU shortly.