Manipal University to Open Institute in China

One of the premier Private University – Manipal University – in India is planning to make inroads into China.  It already has overseas campuses in Malaysia, Nepal, Dubai, and Antigua.

The Karnataka-based private university is exploring a tie-up with two Chinese universities, Tianjin University and Shanghai’s Tongji University, to set up what would be China’s first all-English educational institution that will provide training in Information Technology (IT) and in the sciences.

Manipal has also offered to China’s National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (Hanban) to open Confucious Institutes in Manipal campuses in India, making it a two-way flow.

Chinese Government understands that it needs to enlarge its “Soft Power” by way of spreading its philosophy and educational framework around the world including its language.  So it is setting up Confucious Institutes in over 100 countries.  These are joint initiative among a host foreign university, a Chinese partner university and the Hanban, which runs the program.

The Confucious Insititutes have so far not been able to make inroads into India due to procedural issues.  Although such institutes are already there in many countries.

There are as many as 70 such institutes in the United States alone, 13 in Britain and several dozen in Asia, located in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and other countries.