USA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BACKED OUT FOR OPENING FULL FLEDGED DEGREE CAMPUS IN INDIA INSTEAD TO SET UP A RESEARCH CENTER TO BE LAUNCHED IN MARCH 2014 WASHINGTON, DC: The University of Chicago (UC) will not be opening up a fully-fledged degree campus in India, opting to set up a research center instead. UC will build a state-of-the-art facility in New Delhi called the India Centre, following in the footsteps of other renowned institutions of higher learning such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale, who are all in the planning stages of opening their own India-based research centers. The India Centre is aiming to launch in March, at which point it will initiate its programs with other institutions all around India. The 17,000-square foot complex is estimated to cost UC about $3.45 million. The President of UC, Robert J. Zimmer, said “The center in Delhi reflects the importance the University of Chicago places on global engagement and our commitment [to] India and South Asia particularly.” The UC, as well as the other three aforementioned universities, are part of an increasing trend in which higher education institutions are coming to India not to build actual schools, but to construct research centers. Some see this as a way for the schools to single out promising talent within India, so that the best and brightest young people in India will work on their research endeavors without actually having to develop the talent themselves. The building of foreign university centers in India could also contribute to “brain drain,” or India losing its most promising academic prospects to other countries, which offer better opportunities for studies and employment. According to a story by the BBC, the latest ranking of higher education institutions around the world does not feature a single Indian school in the top 200. UC itself opened similar research centers in Paris (2004) and Beijing (2010). The latter has received somewhere around 7,000 visits from people in 25 countries since it opened.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 06:16:28 +0000