5,000 students and 30 courses in 8 years: Southampton University draws up plan for India campus

Southampton University to launch India campus with 30 courses, aiming for 5,500 students in 8 years.

The U.K.'s Southampton University plans to offer 30 courses and enroll more than 5,000 students in the next eight years at its offshore campus in India, the first ever in the country by a foreign university, according to top officials.

Elaborating on the university's agenda in an interview with PTI, Andrew Atherton, Vice President International and Engagement, said the operations of the campus coming up in the Delhi-National Capital Region will begin next year.

The fees at the Indian campus are likely to be around 60% of the tuition fees at the Southampton campus but the admission requirements will be the same, he said.

The renowned university was granted a Letter of Intent earlier this week by the Indian government to set up its campus in the country.

While Australia's Deakin University and the University of Wollongong have already set up campuses in GIFT City in Gujarat, the University of Southampton will be the first foreign university to set up an India campus under the UGC norms.

"The aim is to grow up to 5,500 students in the first eight to 10 years. So the first year will start small. We will start with six courses, including four undergraduate and two postgraduate programmes. The four UG programmes will be in computing with a focus on AI and data science and also in business with a focus on entrepreneurship. The postgraduate programs will be in computing as well as technology," Mr. Atherton said.

"And then over each year, we will introduce between two and four new programmes so that we will build up to over 30 different programmes, about 20 undergraduate and 12 postgraduate taught programmes.