Deakin University, one of Australia's top-ranked institutions, is set to become the first foreign varsity to set up its campus in India, according to a report on February 27.
Deakin's Indian campus will be located in Gujarat's GIFT City, The Indian Express report said, adding that an official announcement is likely to be made on March 8, when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will visit Ahmedabad.
The university has already filed its application with the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), which regulates GIFT City, to establish the campus and begins operations from 2024, sources told the newspaper. The first batch of students to be admitted will be for postgraduate courses, they added.
Moneycontrol could not independently verify the developments.
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Deakin is ranked 266th in the QS World University Rankings, and is placed in the 250-300 band in the Times Higher Education World Rankings.
The institute has four campuses in Australia - two of them are in Geelong, and one each in Melbourne and Warrnambool. Indians reportedly account for the highest share of overseas students, at 27 percent, followed by Chinese students who make up 22 percent of the overall international students community of Deakin.
The report of Deakin setting up its Indian campus comes over a year after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the government would permit top foreign universities' entry into GIFT City. They will be allowed to offer courses in a number of streams including financial management, FinTech and science “free from domestic regulations…”, she had said.
Bringing foreign varsities to India has been a subject of political debate, with the first attempt dating back to the 90s. A legislation brought to enable their entry in 1995 could not move forward. In 2005-06, a draft law could move only till the Cabinet scrutiny stage. In 2010, another legislation - Foreign Educational Institutions Bill - but it lapsed in 2014 as the then opposition BJP, along with Samajwadi Party and Communist parties had opposed it.
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