Deakin University GIFT City – the first foreign university to start a brand campus in India – has placed eight students even before the official start of the placement season, Deepak Bajaj, the academic and campus director, GIFT City, told FE.
“On Friday, people from the National Australia Bank (NAB) interviewed 24 of our potential graduates, and hired eight of them (seven hired, and approval pending for one student),” Bajaj said. “The NAB has offered our students a dual package. In their first six months of internship starting November, they will earn Rs 75,000 per month. Post that, they will be hired on a Rs 15 lakh per annum salary along with variable components and a generous lifestyle package. These students will be working at the NAB Innovation Centre India in Gurgaon – a global capability centre and an office of the NAB in India.”
He said the official placement season hasn’t yet started – it will run from July 21 to October – but the NAB came to the campus because it has a special partnership with Deakin back in Australia.
“In July 2024, we started two programmes – Master of Cybersecurity, and Master of Business Analytics – with a total of 42 students, most of them from Gujarat,” Bajaj said. “These are made of four semesters bunched together, followed by six months of internship. We expect a lot of companies to be on the campus July 21 onwards.”
Having gained enough experience with these two batches, Deakin Gift City now plans to start new Master programmes. “We will likely start new programmes next year, but will stick to Master degrees for the time being,” he said. “The focus will be on courses in the area of fintech – because a lot of fintech companies are coming to the Gift City, and soon they will need a trained workforce.”
Deakin Gift City also plans to start a Master of Construction Management. “Ahmedabad is at the forefront of India’s bid to host the 2036 Summer Olympics. So, it’s a live lab of construction all around us. A course such as Master of Construction Management will help the ecosystem, as well as help infrastructure development,” Bajaj said.
As far as faculty is concerned, Bajaj said there is local faculty, fly-in, fly-out faculty from the parent campus, and live online classes from Australia. “We are doing the exact replica of our Master courses in Australia. We cannot deviate,” he said. “What we are also doing is giving case studies and examples of the local ecosystem, because ultimately these kids have to be ready for Indian jobs, not for Australian jobs. Instead of focusing on examinations, our focus is on learning through case studies.”