Deakin’s landmark India campus seeks to help tackle unemployment

One of the first foreign universities to set up a base in India is hoping to work with industry to tackle the country’s deep-seated problems with unemployment.

Deakin University opened its new campus in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (Gift City) to students in July, joining fellow Australian institution the University of Wollongong.

Two programmes are initially on offer to students – master’s programmes in cybersecurity and business analytics – with more expected to launch from 2026 onwards. About 60 students were enrolled on the first cohort.

Ravneet Pawha, vice-president for global alliances and South Asia chief executive at Deakin, said the new institution was focused on working with the wider city to both support the burgeoning industry there and help students find jobs, as India grapples with high unemployment rates.

“We do hear a lot from Indian students about unemployment issues and also about high-quality outcomes and education, so we are hoping that we can bring together some strengths that we have and some strengths that industry has,” she said.

“We are working very closely with the Gift ecosystem to understand what their needs are, and we are hopeful that we will be able to bridge that gap.”

Ms Pawha said she expects that many of Deakin’s students will stay and work in Gift City. Envisioned as an international fintech hub, the special economic zone has seen major international companies begin to move in, including Barclays bank, JP Morgan and KPMG.

For foreign universities, the incentives of setting up there are clear: tax exemptions for at least 10 years and freedom from the complex regulations that govern the rest of India.

However, “one should not assume that it’s an easy ride”, warned Ms Pawha. Foreign universities have to meet the requirements of the city’s regulator, IFSCA, as well as continue to abide by regulations set by the institution’s home country.

“My advice to anyone who is looking at setting up in India is that you do need to have an insight into India,” she said. “You have to have a team on the ground that really does understand the local environment, because for institutions that are operating in different parts of the world, the environment in India…will be very different.”

Despite Deakin’s relatively quick set-up in Gift City – 18 months from ideation to opening – the university has been working in the country in other ways for 30 years – over half of the institution’s life. This, said Ms Pawha, has been crucial to the process.

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“I think that it’s also fair to say that it’s not as complicated [a process] as it was a couple of years back,” she added.

While this was Deakin’s first overseas campus, another was already in the works. Earlier this year, the university announced plans to open a branch campus in Indonesia in partnership with the UK’s Lancaster University,

Since then, Australian policymakers have proposed plans to curb the number of international students in the country, which some worry could damage universities’ overseas operations by placing a financial strain on home institutions. However, Ms Pawha believes universities should not focus solely on the balance sheet.

“I think it is important to be commercially viable, but it is also for a whole lot of other strategic reasons that you would make these decisions of having overseas campuses,” she said.

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com