India’s new National Education Policy (NEP) has given a “license to innovate” to foreign universities, according to Michael Wesley, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Melbourne.
“We see the NEP as a license to innovate. I think that previous to the NEP, the ability to do creative things with Indian partners was much more constrained mainly by government policy. If you take a broad overview of the NEP, it’s really India putting a flag in the sand and saying India wants to build one of the world’s best higher education sectors,” Wesley told PTI in an interview.
“We want Indian institutions to partner with institutions around the world to enable us to get there faster and to do it in the amount of time it takes that’s necessary to develop this world class education system in India to meet the demand that India faces for higher education and so therefore we’ve studied NEP very closely,” he added.
Wesley was in Delhi last week, leading the first major foreign delegation that the University of Melbourne has sent post COVID-19.
Paving the way for foreign universities to set up campuses in India, the new NEP which was launched in 2020, states that the world’s top 100 universities will be “facilitated” to operate in the country through a new law.
The NEP cleared by the Cabinet is only the third major revamp of the framework of education in India since independence. The two earlier education policies were brought in 1968 and 1986.
Besides opening up Indian higher education to foreign players, the new policy marks a significant shift in the format of undergraduate education with the reintroduction of the four-year multidisciplinary Bachelor’s programme, with exit options.
Wesley was in Delhi last week, leading the first major foreign delegation that the University of Melbourne has sent post COVID-19.
Paving the way for foreign universities to set up campuses in India, the new NEP which was launched in 2020, states that the world’s top 100 universities will be “facilitated” to operate in the country through a new law.
The NEP cleared by the Cabinet is only the third major revamp of the framework of education in India since independence. The two earlier education policies were brought in 1968 and 1986.
Besides opening up Indian higher education to foreign players, the new policy marks a significant shift in the format of undergraduate education with the reintroduction of the four-year multidisciplinary Bachelor’s programme, with exit options.
Unveiling a blended Academy with Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) which is a partnership for the Bachelor of Science programme, Melbourne India Postgraduate Academy which is a partnership with the Indian Institute of Science, were the two major programmes on the delegation’s agenda.
“There are a range of potentially innovative ways that we can partner with Indian institutions to help build their capacity, but also to deepen our interests in India as we’re also exploring partnership agreements with a range of universities around India, in fact the University of Melbourne is a big institution.
“It has almost 10,000 staff, it has 11 faculties and each of the faculties has its own distinct relationships with different Indian universities. And so we’re looking to build on those very strong networks of linkages that we have to further increase our collaboration with Indian institutions,” Wesley added.
