Even though foreign universities are coming to India — with Australia’s Deakin and Wollongong setting up campuses in GIFT City in Gujarat — an Indian university is spreading its influence across the world. SP Jain School of Global Management (SPJSGM) — present in Mumbai, Sydney, Singapore and Dubai — recently opened its fifth campus in London. “We are a fully registered UK entity now,” Nitish Jain, president, SP Jain School of Global Management, says. In an interview with FE’s Vikram Chaudhary, he adds that SP Jain can get students on its own student visas to the London campus. Excerpts:
Considering that you have five campuses across the world, do students have the freedom to choose any campus they like to for studying?
We are known for our tri-city model of education, wherein students have the option to study in three campuses. This opens up more job opportunities for students because they not only study on the campus, but network as well with industry and with the locals. Corporates need graduates with global exposure, and we’ve been readying such graduates for quite some time.
What do you think of India opening doors to foreign universities?
It’s a path-breaking initiative. Studying in a foreign country has its own benefits, and students who go abroad for studies also want to work there, but if you plan to go abroad only for a foreign degree, it’s better to study at one of their campuses in India as and when these open up.
Does the word ‘global’ in the name SP Jain Global imply that you will expand only globally, and won’t have another India campus outside of Mumbai?
Our philosophy is that the business world has gone global, and therefore business schools should also go global because companies need people who can work in a global team and exploit global opportunities.
In fact, our unique selling point is our global campuses.
But we are open to expanding in India as well, and are closely watching the space.
In your global campuses, do you predominantly get Indian-origin students?
It depends on the programme. For example, in the BBA, we have students from 20-odd countries, but in the global MBA programme we predominantly have Indian students. At the end of the day, we are a global Indian school. We also know that our brand is not as strong as the world’s top business school brands, so attracting students from other nationalities for the global MBA programme is tougher.
For us to attract Indian students (for the global MBA programme) is easy because the brand is well known amongst Indians.
Is there any connection between SP Jain Global and the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), the Mumbai-based business school? Do students or industry get confused?
SP Jain is the name of my late grandfather, and he was the one who was the patron of SPJIMR, so we gave the name SP Jain to them, and not the other round. SP Jain Global, on the other hand, is a trademark owned by us. It could be confusing to some, but it’s no different than IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore or IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur. Those who need to know the difference, know the difference.