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Building bridges through education

Passing By
Last Updated 13 January 2015, 15:21 IST

David Agnew, president of Seneca College, North America was in the city for a day but the work he has done may just have built educational bridges between India and Canada for a lifetime.

Meeting with several stakeholders of Entrepreneurship and Management Processes International (EMPI), with which Seneca has signed a Memorandum of Understanding. The MOU with EMCI, Delhi is the fourth such understanding between Seneca and an Indian institution, following up on the existing partnerships they have with the Mangalam Group of Educational Institutions, Kerala, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gujarat
and the College of Engineering, Pune.

“We are expanding applied research activities, broadening international and corporate partnerships, investing in capital improvements and increasing experiential, cross-disciplinary and flexible learning opportunities,” Agnew tells Metrolife during an interaction.

Our endeavour, he says “Focuses on a joint post-graduate program in Social Media and Business, aimed at providing mobility for qualified MBA/PGD students to specialise in Seneca’s Social Medial post-graduate program in their second year”.

This means that students will pursue their first year of education at EMPI and the next year at Seneca, with a certificate from both institutions to help frame the experience of the students with the best of both programs. “This will allow students to then apply for citizenship once they are done pursuing the course. Canada is in need of immigrants, to compensate for the depleting work force of the nation,” says Agnew.

India ranks second when it comes to sending foreign students to Canada, after China. Seneca currently has eight MOU’s with Chinese institutions but Agnew feels that soon the statistics for India will be at par with that of the Chinese. Indian students who attend Seneca College predominantly come from Gujarat, Punjab, Maharashtra and New Delhi.

In 2013, students from India comprised 54.6 per cent of all international students in Seneca College’s Faculty of Applied Science, Engineering and Technology programs.

When asked if there was any difference between the mindset of students here in India and their counterparts in Canada, Agnew stated, “There is not much of a difference, primarily because the concept of education in both nations is similar and also because most of the students in Canada, both of the present and in the past, are naturalised citizens who were immigrants at one point in time. Their work ethic has been taken on by the indigenous students and now everyone has the same approach.”

Agnew hopes to return in the near future to not only expand Seneca’s network but also pave the way for aspiring Indians towards a brighter tomorrow.


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(Published 13 January 2015, 15:21 IST)

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