Student numbers at IIT Madras-Zanzibar campus grow

Less than six months after making history as India’s first-ever overseas university campus, the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) campus on Tanzania’s Zanzibar island is fast gaining in popularity, with plans to increase its student intake in March and April.

The campus, with students from India, Tanzania and other African countries, is increasing in numbers to as many as 100 from the 50 admitted last year, over growing interest in its programmes.

The institution, the result of an memorandum of understanding between the governments of India and Tanzania-Zanzibar and IIT Madras, signed in July 2023, admitted its first cohort of students months later, in October, before a high-key inauguration of what came to be known as IIT Madras-Zanzibar (IIT Madras-Zanzibar) in November.

Specialising in engineering and science programmes, it opened with 35 undergraduates and 15 postgraduates who are enrolled in a four-year BSc in data science and artificial intelligence degree, and in a masters of technology degree focusing on data science and artificial intelligence.

While the campus director-in-charge, Professor Preeti Aghalayam, insists that the focus is on quality as opposed to numbers, the call for more applications indicates that as many as 75 places are available for the BSc programme, while 25 will be available for the MTech programme, owing to the hundreds of enquiries received.

Quality rather than numbers

The reputation of IIT Madras as the top-ranked Indian engineering institution is one of the many reasons why the Zanzibar campus has attracted the attention of students, parents and others, the director said.

Applications for the second cohort are coming in from across the world, and interest in the programmes was “very high”, she said, while academic colleagues from other institutions in Africa and beyond have expressed enthusiasm for collaborations, with several partnerships being envisaged.

“The campus is ready to welcome the second batch of students and, in readiness, has opened the application duration for longer than it did in the inaugural intake last year,” she said, adding that it was guided more by the quality of programmes and “student intake processes than numbers”.

Over the period it has been in operation, the institution has “truly flourished”, and the first batch of students are getting the full IIT Madras experience, with academically challenging courses and curricula, hostel living, and a vibrant student club culture, Aghalayam, the first-ever woman director of an IIT campus, told University World News.

Its population is already diverse and international, with a global focus, built on the academic and research expertise of IIT Madras to deliver impact, in a new and expanding African region.

On the other hand, the director noted, course curricula are state-of-the-art and interdisciplinary and are tailored to care for the needs of young persons across the world, which are some of the reasons for the high interest in IIT Madras-Zanzibar.

“Looking at the performance of our current students, our own remarkable experiences as teachers, and the constant interest in IIT Madras-Zanzibar that we are getting from various quarters, we might need to consider providing access to our education to more numbers of deserving young persons,” she disclosed.

The IIT Madras-Zanzibar’s admission process gauges students based on their application forms, performance in a screening test and personal interviews.

The fees at the university campus are competitive when “compared with institutions of similar repute across the world”, but higher than what local institutions charge. Needy bright students, however, can receive financial support from various quarters, including the government and IIT Madras alumni, she explained.

In the future, programmes in emerging areas, including infrastructure engineering, sustainability, energy systems, communication engineering and so on, will be introduced, she disclosed.

At the same time, the institution has also kick-started several initiatives aimed at improving access to knowledge about data science, in the region. These include an IIT Madras-Zanzibar lecture series in the campus, intense and immersive learning retreats for corporates, and courses on big data, among others.

Efforts to initiate regional partnerships and collaborations with a variety of state and non-state actors have been taking place, according to the director.

She explained that one such initiative involved a visit to Kenya in early March, facilitated by the Indian High Commission in Nairobi, which included meetings with Kenya’s ministries of information and communications technology, as well as education where collaboration in education, data science and artificial intelligence were proposed.

While IIT Madras was established in 1959, the IIT Zanzibar campus is proposed as a world-class institution serving the educational and research needs in the African region, in general, and Tanzania in particular. It promises to bring the same rigour that has defined IIT Madras academic culture to Africa, in an effort to contribute to the human resources development of the continent.