Mumbai University mulls over setting up campus in UAE, Dubai

University of Mumbai could soon become the second Indian state university to set up its campus in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), if everything goes accordingly.

The varsity has received invites from the desert kingdoms of the UAE and separately from Dubai to set up campuses there and it has already given a nod for the same.

While a budgetery provision of Rs 20 lakh has been set aside for the overseas campus, the project is already discussed with interested institutions in the UAE.

For its own students who wish to study abroad, the university will apply for membership to the college board code. This will give Mumbai University (MU) students information access to 6,000 American colleges.

“We will take more memberships of European and south-east Asian countries where our students head. This will put them in a comfort zone in terms of accessing information,” said Sanjay Deshmukh, Vice Chancellor of MU.

However some of faculty members are of the opinion that administration should take lessons from the University of Pune and conduct a feasibility survey before making budgetary provisions. They said that how the Pune university campus in Ras al Khaimah (RAK), UAE, turned out to be a failure as there were no takers for the courses they were offering.

Pune university is the first Indian university to go offshore in 2009, to set up a campus in UAE, under the leadership of Dr Narendra Jadhav, the then vice-chancellor of the university.

The university budget, which has projected surplus of Rs 63 crore from the previous Rs 74 crore, has earmarked funds for various developments in the university including, inter-university and institutional association for student and faculty exchange and development of dual-degree programmes.

As far as other initiatives in the domestic sector are concerned, the university will be setting up skill development centers at Zarap in Sindhudurg district and Palghar district.