On 5 January, India’s higher-education regulator, the University Grants Commission (UGC), proposed rules rules University Grants Commission UGC (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations Read more allowing foreign universities to set up campuses in the country. The draft—put up for suggestions and critique—sparked heated debates among academics about its impact on local universities. Many argued that it should be Indian academies reshaping the global educational landscape instead.
“Why not let our institutions go abroad and change the game? The top five companies worldwide are led by Indian chief executives (CEOs), but only a few studied in Indian institutions,” said Christopher Abraham, CEO of SP Jain School of Global Management’s Dubai campus.
Talking to The Ken over a Zoom call, sitting in his ground-floor office in Dubai, surrounded by students playing cricket behind glass walls, he pondered the recent G20 Working Group meeting meeting Indian Express G20 Education Working Group meet concludes Read more in the northeastern Indian city of Guwahati. One resolution, in particular, had caught his attention. The member countries had agreed to collaborate with universities worldwide, especially for technical education.
As the Indian government wakes up to the prospect of internationalisation, a few institutions, such as SP Jain Global, have already been forging ahead in the global market for over a decade.
From the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE)—which established its medical school in Malaysia in 1996—to SP Jain Global’s November 2022 announcement announcement Indian Express New SP Jain School of Global Management international campus inaugurated in London Read more of a London campus (set to begin in September 2023), much has transpired, albeit slowly.
SP Jain Global’s latest, most ambitious expansion puts it in the same arena as well-established names such as London Business School and Imperial College Business School. It is one of the few Indian academic institutions to take up the challenge of entering the West.
The S P Jain School of Global Management (SPJSGM) and the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) are distinct organisations. SPJIMR, located in Mumbai, continues to be widely recognised as a premier institution in the field of management education in India. SPJSGM is a private business school located in Sydney, Mumbai, Singapore, Dubai, and, most recently, London.
Most of SP Jain Global’s higher-ed peers have limited their international presence to just one location: Dubai. Invited by the local government, what was intended to be a pitstop has become a full stop.
