The English and Foreign Languages (EFL) University here has received proposals from the Ministry of External Affairs and different Indian Embassies to set up off-shore campuses in foreign countries, EFL University Vice-Chancellor, Prof Abhai Maurya said today.
"We have received proposals from the Indian Embassies in six countries to set up off-shore campuses of our university. We have submitted proposals to the HRD Ministry and the Ministry of External Affairs seeking approval for setting up off-shore campuses in Malaysia, Yemen, Oman, Mangolia and Belarus," Abhai Maurya told reporters here.
The Ministry of External Affairs had approached EFL to set up off-shore campuses and the modalities for setting up such campuses are now being worked out, the Vice-Chancellor said adding "We are the only Central University in the country which has been called upon to set up off-shore campuses."
Talking about developmental activities of EFL--the Hyderabad-based Central University, he said the university has been identified as the nodal agency by the Ministry of External Affairs to set up permanent Centres for English Language Training (CELTs) in ASEAN countries.
The University has submitted proposals for setting up new campuses at Rohtak in Haryana and Kollam district of Kerala, which are under the active consideration of the Ministry of HRD, Maurya said.
Both Haryana and Kerala governments have given about 100 acres of land for the campuses which are likely to come up in the next academic year, the EFL Vice-Chancellor said. EFL already runs the Lucknow campus and the Northeast campus in Shillong.
EFL will also have its parallel campus in Pochampalli mandal in Nalgonda district in Andhra with 92 acres of land in Jalalpur village being allotted. There is also a proposal to set up another campus at Visakhapatnam, he informed.
EFL has created a Department of India Studies and some courses in Hindi would soon be started, Maurya said, apart from introducing language courses in Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Japanese, Italian and Portuguese from this year.
The students (admissions) strength at EFL rose nearly ten times since 2007, from 262 students to 1,838 while the number of foreign students has gone up from 22 to 700, he said.
EFL has set up the Research and Creative Sources Generation Centre and will be acquiring latest research sources, text books and creative works related to all disciplines, available in languages like Russian, Chinese, Japanese, French, German and others. "The centre will get them translated into English with a view to making them available to Indian research," he said.
"This (developmental activities) speaks volume about the credibility our university has gained in the last two years in the field of English studies," he said.