CANADA: Universities ramp up ties with India

That 2011 is the Year of India in Canada is a fact not lost on Canadian universities, many of which are ramping up efforts to play a larger part in serving India's skyrocketing demand for higher education, writes James Bradshaw for The Globe and Mail.

Canada has lagged behind its Western counterparts in forging educational ties with India. Of 160,000 Indian students studying abroad in 2008, fewer than 4,000 were in Canada. But bolstered by the perceived success of a visit undertaken by 15 university presidents last November, many schools have begun the slow process of deepening ties with the emerging power.

A ground breaking is scheduled for next month in the central city of Hyderabad on York University's long-held plans to build the first 'fully-fledged' Canadian campus on Indian soil. And representatives of Simon Fraser University and the University of Winnipeg visited India early this year. The latest such voyage from Carleton University President Roseann O'Reilly Runte set the stage for a pair of Canada-India summits on education and innovation later this month.
Full report on The Globe and Mail site