Cross-border education

Manipal's efforts are of a piece with several cross-border education initiatives, especially in IT and IT-enabled services. Key among these are the India China Alliance Centre (ICAC) and QAI, a global IT consulting organisation.

Three missions to China so far have resulted in some cooperation agreements. ICAC has signed one with the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) in Beijing.

A Letter of Intent has been signed between the School of Information Engineering, Shenyang University, Northeastern China, and Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Allahabad, for an exchange programme in computer sciences.

Meanwhile, Kamaraj University in Madurai is exploring collaborations with UIBE, Tsinghua University and Northeastern University in Shenyang, for business education, computer application and biotechnology.

QAI has partnered the National Institute of Technical Education, China, which is the central body governing IT education in China and also has an arrangement with Fudan University to teach Master of Software Engineering courses.

"There are many others in the offing; the collaborations are very close to be finalised," said Navyug Mahnot, CEO, QAI India Ltd.

Overall, the numbers are still small "� only about 5,000 Chinese students come to Indian universities and B-schools compared with the 50,000-odd Indian students that travel to the Middle Kingdom mainly for medical studies.

But as Piyush Bahl, Chief Executive Officer, ICAC, points out, " China's burgeoning middle class is creating a demand for higher education and India's IT prowess and higher education is gratifying both in terms of affordability and quality."