The Indian Institute of Technology has carved out a distinguished place on the global stage. Today, quite a few IITians are at the helm of the world’s top companies upholding India’s capability in the domains of research, science and technology.
A historic agreement to set up the first overseas IIT campus was the highlight of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Tanzania last week. It is a new landmark in India -Africa relations manifesting the Government of India’s vision to deepen India’s relations with Africa by aligning the continent’s development goals.
Given the national and international stature of this eminent educational institution, it is a matter of great significance that Tanzania’s Zanzibar has been chosen as the destination for the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) overseas. The campus, known as IITM Zanzibar, a collaboration between IIT-Madras and Tanzania government, is set to bring India’s strength in science and technology to African soil.
The move is very much in line with India’s “National Education Policy (NEP) unveiled in 2020 which encourages high-performing Indian universities to set up campuses abroad. The India-Africa Higher Education and Skill Development Summit held in New Delhi in 2019 proclaimed India’s support to Africa to develop scientific human resources, bridge the digital divide and upgrade skills. In line with the promise, the courses offered in IITM-Zanzibar include courses in Data Science and AI, the skills highest in global demand today. To be designed by IIT Madras, the curriculum is expected to help the economy of Tanzania to gradually transform from a lower-middle income economy that is overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture to a middle-income economy.
India-Tanzania ties are built on a strong foundation of political and economic ties. The sound bilateral economic ties are reflected in the two-way trade worth $6.4 billion in 2022-23, and Indian investment of around $4 billion embracing a large cross section of sectors including health care and mining. Therefore, Zanzibar became a natural choice for hosting the prestigious IIT. Further, Tanzania’s strategic location in East Africa bordered by eight countries: Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, will open doors of the campus to students from East, Central and Southern African countries.
India has been actively involved in the task of empowering Tanzania’s youth for several years. Thousands of Tanzanian youth benefitted from programmes such as the India-Tanzania Centre of Excellence in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the ICT Resource Centre at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science & Technology and so on.
The setting of the IIT campus in Zanzibar is taking place at a crucial time when Africa is in the middle of a severe shortage of higher education facilities to upskill its youth, keeping pace with the rapid population growth. Analysts are worried about the steep growth in the population of Africa. According to United Nations estimates, the population in the continent will swell to 2.5 billion in 2050 from the current 1.4 billion creating a huge demand for higher education.
The figures from the World Bank show that the continent is grappling with a daunting education crisis. Just under 9 per cent of secondary school leavers in sub-Saharan Africa currently have access to tertiary education, as against the global average of about 35 per cent. In fact, providing better access to higher education on the continent is an absolute necessity. A failure to address the issue may result in a soaring population of unemployed and unskilled youth that could lead to instability not only in Africa but across the world.
Many universities from developed countries have been wooing African students, mostly children of the elite, to their courses. But mostly these courses are designed to cater to the Northern needs with very little relevance to Africa.
When Universities in the Global North regard the escalating demand from African students as a business opportunity for their universities to cash, India’s partnership with Tanzania to set up its world-class IIT campus on African soil is a commendable gesture. It is a commentary on India’s commitment to partner with the continent for Africa’s development.
