C Shivakumar
Chennai:
As technology is changing and world is shrinking, universities in
United Kingdom are trying to cope up with the changes by offering new
and innovative courses to woo students in Chennai who aspire to have a
foreign degree to add value to their profile.
The competitiveness among the global universities to woo Indian as
well as students from the developing world is such that many
international varsities like University of Reading has bought in 10
new courses in the last two years to keep itself and its students
abreast of the technological changes the world is undergoing.
The new courses are being launched as universities are redeveloping
their facilities as well as infrastructure to themselves on par with
the technological changes, said regional manager (south and Central
Asia) University of Reading Mahesh Yanambakkam.
Interestingly, while 63 universities of United Kingdom gathered at one
place to attract the students from the city, it seems the students
were quite choosy this time.
L Dhanasekaran, head partnerships and policy dialogues,
Internationalising Higher Education, British Council told Express that
this time students in the city have shown more maturity by asking only
specific doubts.
Interestingly, it is engineering as well as business management that
has attracted the Indian students to the stall of University of
Strathclyde. Suraj, who is pursuing MS in civil engineering in India’s
prestigious IIT Madras is looking for a doctoral programme in the
university.
“I have done my undergraduation in National Institute of Technology,
and pursuing my post graduation in IIT, I want to level up by each
step so I am looking to pursue my doctoral research in United
Kingdom,” he says.
To a query on he could have done it here in IIT, Suraj says that he
wasnts to stay in academics and teach in India. “If I have a degree
from abroad, I could even land a job in India’s prestigious institutes
like IIT itself,” he says.
Suraj is quite surprised by such a large education mela. “Earlier, we
went after them to pursue studies in UK but now the universities are
coming here and inviting us to join,” says Suraj.
Interestingly, even the universities which offer art streams like
politics as well as law and economics are also modeling the courses
differently.
Mark Coddington, international officer of SOAS University of London,
says they offer course on niche areas including development economics,
which talks more of culture, migration and is less focused on math.
“We even have course on Tamil and also study Tamil cinema,” he says
while proudly displaying a bag which has a picture of Tamil Saint
Thiruvalluvar.
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