Acting Assistant Undersecretary for Higher Education Affairs, Dr. Khalid Abdullah Al Ali
Doha: A new private Indian university, a campus of Savitribai Phule Pune University, will open in September at Barwa, Abu Hamour, this year offering five academic programmes initially.
Under a five-year plan of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, three more private universities are expected to open in Qatar giving more options to students to pick up the programmes of their choice and budget.
“The new Indian university will offer engineering, management and pharmacy programmes,” Acting Assistant Undersecretary for Higher Education Affairs at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Dr. Khalid Abdullah Al Ali told The Peninsula.
He said that the university will start operations with 300 students per year. “By the fourth year, it will reach over 1,000 students as per the plan. The launch of the campus of Savitribai Phule Pune University in Qatar is one of the big project on which we are working to complete as soon as possible,” said Dr. Al Ali.
He said that the university’s opening was delayed for one year because of COVID-19 pandemic as it was supposed to open in September 2020.
“The academic programmes to be launched initially are going through official procedures for getting final approval. We are having meeting with the mother university in India to review the academic programmes which will be launched in the first year,” said Dr. Al Ali.
He said that the management of the new university selected a good building located in Barwa in Abu Hamour. “We, a team from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, will visit the campus next week for final approval of the building,” said Dr. Al Ali.
Dr. Al Ali revealed that a number of universities including American universities have applied to the department concerned at the Ministry to open branches in Qatar. “We are trying to provide higher education for the students living in Qatar as much as possible following Qatar National Vision 2030 to provide education to all students living in this country,” said Dr. Al Ali.
He said that the Ministry of Education and Higher Education is working to provide universities with different budgets, so everyone can afford higher studies in Qatar.
“We have Arabic and English private universities. Now we are going to have an Indian university which will serve more students,” said Dr. Al Ali. Under a five-year plan, he said: “We are trying to have another two or three private universities to offer academic programmes of different varieties covering all segments of the community.”
