At least 48 varsities engaged in academic collaborations with foreign institutes

As many as 48 Indian universities have either engaged in academic collaborations with foreign institutes or are in the final stage of collaboration agreements after the University Grants Commission announced joint degrees with foreign universities in April this year.

This includes a twinning agreement that Jawaharlal Nehru University has with Germany’s Heidelberg University and Tata Institute of Social Sciences’s dual degree collaborations with Australia’s Monash University and London’s Queen Mary University. Currently, 230 Indian universities and 1256 foreign universities fulfil the eligibility criteria as per the new UGC Regulations.

Among the 48 Indian universities, 18 are offering twinning degrees, eight are offering joint degrees and nine are offering dual degree programmes. In all, 26 Central Universities are eligible for international collaborations as per the rules of the higher education body, and so far, eight Central Universities have responded to the UGC sharing information on academic collaboration. These include Jawaharlal Nehru University, Banaras Hindu University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Tezpur University, Central University of Haryana, Pondicherry University, Maulana Azad National Urdu University and Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University.

While JNU has a twinning arrangement with the Germany university, TISS announced a dual degree programme in collaboration with Australia’s Monash University in International Development Practice, and another with London’s Queen Mary University in Social Entrepreneurship and International Business from the 2022-23 academic session.

Pondicherry University, too, is offering twinning, joint degree and dual degree in collaboration with foreign institutes, including US’s Indiana University, and BHU has initiated steps to regularise its existing academic collaboration as per the new Regulations. Tezpur University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Maulana Azad Urdu University and Central University of Haryana have collaboration with foreign institutions, but not as per the latest regulations. Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University is yet to enter into a collaboration.

To be eligible for international collaborations of any kind, higher educational institutions (HEIs) need to have a National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation of 3.01 and above on a 4-point scale, or figure in the top 1000 of the QS World University ranking or the top 100 in the university category of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF).

As per the UGC’s new rules, universities should enter a memorandum of understanding with foreign universities, which need to include provisions related to student obligations, fees and other financial arrangements, intellectual property rights, student’s attendance patterns, duration of stay for the study programme in both the institutes, joint supervision arrangements, language of thesis and examinations, admission and evaluation process and graduation procedures, among others.

The regulations also mandate that institute enter into academic collaborations with foreign institutes as per the UGC provisions only, and programmes offered under these regulations shall not be allowed in online and online distance learning mode. The regulations also provide for the transfer and recognition of credits, but must not be from overlapping course contents. The regulations also do not allow for franchise arrangement.

Twinning is a collaborative arrangement whereby students enrolled with an Indian university can study partly in India and partly in the foreign institute, but are awarded the degree from the Indian university only.

1. Joint Degree programme is when the curriculum is designed jointly by the collaborating institutes, and the degree is awarded by both the institutes with a single certificate. Under this system, students must earn at least 30% of the total credits from each of the universities.

2. Dual Degree programme is an arrangement when the degree is conferred by the Indian as well as foreign university, separately and simultaneously, upon completion of degree requirements of both the institutions. Students must earn at least 30% of total credits from the Indian institution