With the Cabinet nod to the Foreign Educational Institution Bill, allowing foreign education providers to set up campuses in India, Chennai has got the first ?pedagogic? call from the overseas.
The US-based Virginia Tech University has chosen Chennai to establish its Indian campus in collaboration with Marg Ltd, the diversified infrastructure major, on the outskirts of the city. The Indian edition of Virginia Tech, which has been touted as the future Asian hub of the education major, will offer advanced education and research in the fields of nanoscale science and engineering, nano biotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and automotive engineering. Virginia Tech will manage the campus and design its academic programmes, research facilities and labs.
?This will be a joint venture and other modalities are being worked out as the new Bill will be taken up by the lawmakers very soon. The Marg has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Virginia Tech and we expect the campus to be operationalised by July 2011, said Marg Ltd chairman & MD GRK Reddy.
The 30-acre campus is expected to come up at Marg?s flagship Swarnabhoomi project which will feature innovation centres and draw upon Virginia Tech research resources such as the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech. The centres will work with industry to capitalise on innovation research and emerging market opportunities in India and the region. The campus will be managed and operated by a joint trust in the knowledge hub of Marg Swarnabhoomi. Marg will be developing the required infrastructure for the trust to establish the university.
Reddy said, ?The MoU with Virginia Tech is a proud moment for us, as we will be a part of promoting world class education through the university, which will help address the global opportunities at large.? Marg Swarnabhoomi has been designed to be an aspirational habitat based on the principles of new urbanism, where business, living and learning will coexist in a stress free atmosphere. At Marg, we strongly believe in inclusive living, and are confident that this initiative will help in enhancing and enriching the lives of the future generations.?
Charles W Steger, president of Virginia Tech said, ?This is a historic moment for Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech, India will create a place in India where engineers, students, and high tech science professionals from the United States and India will work together and learn from each other. Together, they will create things that none of them could do alone. Equally important, I envision this campus as a springboard to further partnerships with the private sector as well as research institutes throughout India and south Asia.?