Mark Scott, President, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney, Australia, has announced plans to offer tailored courses to Indian students. The announcement was made in an interview on Scotts recent week-long visit to India.
He also signed an MoU with IIT Madras and OP Jindal Global Institute during his visit. His trip was planned to participate in the recently-held Australia-India Leadership Dialogue.
Scott remarked about Indian students' clarity in applying for courses that eventually help them in their jobs. He observed the value of time and money reflected in the outlook of students toward higher education.
Drawing inspiration from such perspectives, he announced that the university would work on catering to the needs of Indian students by designing courses and learning opportunities aligned with the job requirements.
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He shared his observation on how short-term programs are especially popular among Indian students and graduates. The lack of capabilities for job profiles pushes graduates to turn to short-term courses to ensure career progression. He aims to resolve this conflict of students with their graduate courses which fail to meet their job requirements.
The plan is to ensure a deeper embedding of the industry as part of the course study, especially for business and engineering courses. Scott revealed that the universitys neighbourhood will witness a US Silicon Valley-like development in the form of Tech Central. This arrangement can prove to be extremely helpful for students to discover work-related opportunities and learning during their course studies.
The university has observed an increase in enrollment of Indian students after the pandemic.
Though he refuted the University of Sydney as being a part of it, Scott acknowledged the need for affordable higher education in Australia for Indian students. The university fee structure has not increased the real prices of tuition fees too much and is also offering various generous fellowships as well to Indian students.
Scott admitted that offshore campuses of Australian universities in India might not be possible in the recent future due to the mixed experience of Australian universities. The plans were initially discussed during the previous months visit of Dharmendra Pradhan, Indian Union Education Minister, of Australia.
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Instead, there are plans to execute partnerships with Indian universities.
The University of Sydney has entered into a partnership with OP Jindal Global University for certain courses. The programs will allow students to study for two years in India and for two years in Australia and let them explore wider industrial understanding and opportunities.
Scott also signed an MOU with V.Kamakoti, Director of IIT Madras, during his visit. Both heads represented their respective universities to enter into a research partnership to explore ways to combat the energy challenge. The research will execute combined efforts in exploring energy storage, conversion, solar desalination, cold storage, photo and electrochemical energy, gas turbines, microgrids, and other renewable energy systems.
Mark Scott holds that partnerships, focused study programs, and integration of work-related opportunities in study courses are the future of higher education, international collaborations, and sustainable economies.
Source: The Hindu
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