IIT Madras To Open Its First-Ever International Campus In Tanzania

The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) is all set to open its first-ever international campus in Zanzibar, Tanzania. The institute is planning to start its classes with a batch of 50 undergraduate (UG) and 20 postgraduate (PG) students by October 2023. The institute is also planning to offer Data Science and Artificial Intelligence programmes. As of now, the fee structure remains undecided, as mentioned in a report by IANS.

The campus for the IIT in Zanzibar is likely to be completed within the next three to five years.

A special team of five professors from IIT Madras visited Tanzania in February this year and took part in discussions with several officials on opening the campus. Hussein Mwinyi, President of Zanzibar granted permission for the campus while assuring the autonomy IITs would need to guarantee that the quality is maintained.

IIT Zanzibar will be one of three international campuses outside India, with the others set up in Kuala Lumpur and Abu Dhabi. According to a local Tanzanian daily – The Citizen, each of these campuses is planned to serve its region, with Zanzibar serving the greater East African region.

In February, when IIT Madras delegations visited Tanzania, Binaya Pradhan, an Indian Diplomat and High Commissioner of India, Tanzania, shared a tweet stating that “IIT in Tanzania can be instrumental in the growth and the nation building of not only Tanzania but of the whole continent”.

The team from IIT Madras that visited Tanzania for the offshore campus featured Professor Raghu Rengaswamy, Professor Preeti Aghalayam, Professor Livy Philip, Professor KN Satyanarayana, and Professor Annamalai Mani.

In 2022, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan conducted a series of meetings with his counterparts to strengthen their bilateral relations. The conferences were held with Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, and Ghana to build up the education and employment sector. During the meeting, Pradhan also discussed India’s support for the IIT project in Tanzania for education and vocational training.

There were some reports that claimed that the offshore campuses of IITs may be named as “India International Institute of Technology” and faculty members from the prestigious technology institutes may be sent on deputation abroad.