Why modi government mulling over opening IIT, IIM campuses abroad?

The NDA government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is now planning on revising its earlier policy of not opening up higher educational institutes abroad. As part of its foreign policy, it may now set up campuses of prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) in countries like Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Dubai.

While fending off allegations of ‘saffronisation’ of education, the government may now focus on ‘internationalisation’ of education. According to the policy document, global diplomacy and development priorities of India need to consider requests of South Asian countries such as Sri Lanka and Myanmar; international city states such as Dubai, Kuwait and Qatar; and countries with significant Indian population such as Mauritius to facilitate international campus of prominent Indian institutes.

Even though there has been a growing demand for IIT and IIM like institutes in developing countries, the government has only agreed to academic and research collaborations and faculty exchange programmes till now. The hitch in setting up campus abroad was that when the institutes in India are already short of good faculty, it could not be a good idea to send Indian faculty abroad. However, with a pressing need for international engagement for strategic reasons has forced the government to changes its view. The focus will now be on expanding the pool of IIT and IIM faculty to enable this initiative.

In 2006, IIM Bangalore had sought to set up a campus in Singapore but the government had shot down