The move will facilitate exchange of students and faculty members, joint research and programmes
The University of Pune (UoP) has signed agreements with leading universities from countries like France, China, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Austria and South Africa, apart from some Latin American ones, too.
University Vice-Chancellor, Narendra Jadhav told Business Standard that the MoUs, which have been signed recently, will facilitate the exchange of students and faculty members, and joint research (funded by a third party) and running of programmes in each other’s campuses. “To put UoP on the global education map, my agenda is to have more and more offshore universities. And if everything goes as planned, UoP will soon open its campus in Kampala, Uganda. I am hopeful that the MoUs may also result in having our University replicas in those countries in the future,” said he.
The offshore university programme will run on a business model with the UoP having to spend nothing from its pocket. The University will tie up with local partners who have the money but not educational expertise, to provide funding and depend on them to take care of infrastructure and administrative needs and thus run educational programmes in those countries, which will award students with certificates from Pune University.
This will benefit faculty members who go overseas to teach, as they will not only receive international currency salaries but an exposure that will benefit Indian students once they get back. A royalty sum of not less than Rs 1 crore will be sent back to UoP from the fees thus collected from these overseas varsities. “This money will be used to give better facilities and infrastructure to students studying here,” added Dr Jadhav.
Also, as many as 46 students and teachers from UOP under the European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus programme (2009-2013) will go to 12 European universities and 18 students and teachers from European universities, will come to UoP. Out of the total Rs 60 crore that the Commission has earmarked for India, Rs 8 crore are set aside for the Pune varsity. Indian students will be sent there for anywhere between a 3-6 month term to a semester or upto a maximum of one academic year. Apart from UoP, the Delhi University and Tata Institute of Social Sciences are among the other Indian universities that are under the Erasmus Mundus programme.
