The university is “on track to have a teaching location” there

Uni Wollongong plans to teach finance, business and STEM programmes at a greenfield property development for financial service companies, in the Gujarat-state city of Ahmedabad.

There was a signing ceremony Wednesday , attended by the university’s dean of business and law Colin Picker, NSW trade minister Stuart Ayres and an unnamed bloke in the photo who looked rather like High Commissioner Barry O’Farrell.

“We are delighted to be the first Australian university on track to have a teaching location in India,” Professor Picker said.  The university states that teaching will occur, “within a partnership or on a stand-alone basis.“

Teaching local and international students could begin in May, “subject to Indian regulations.”

There is no word on student numbers or whether courses will articulate to the university’s campus in Wollongong.

While UoW has been looking at Gujarat for at least five years this plan appears intended to make the most of the interim India-Australia free trade agreement, signed last year.

Which a licence to print money is not.*

Still, UoW is game to get on the ground – which is probably wise. As Macquarie U director for India Abizer Merchant told Dirk Mulder in CMM, “Indian providers will look for mutual benefit rather than simply articulating their students into Australian degrees (CMM June 16, HERE).

* according to the Commonwealth Department of Education, (CMM May 27) India will now allow,

twinning programme: 30 per cent of a qualification awarded by an Indian university can be studied at a foreign university, “through a conventional mode of study”

joint degree: syllabus jointly created by Indian and off-shore partners, minimum 30 per cent studied with the latter

dual degree: Not what it means in Australia. In India it is two degree in the same field and academic level. 30 per cent of total credits must be from the Indian university and subjects completed at either count to the degrees from both.