St Louis University talks of immense potential to strengthen Indo-US collaborations in education

HYDERABAD, Dec 1 (The CONNECT) – The United States of America allows 84,000 Indian students to study in American Universities annually.  Nearly 44% or 33000 students of these Indian students hail from the two Telugu States.

Stating this, Eric S. Armbrecht, Associate Provost and Director of the Global Education Program at Saint Louis University, said that India and the USA are natural allies, especially in education. He stressed that there is an immense potential to strengthen collaborations between the educational institutions of the two countries.  International collaboration begins with mutual interests and a shared commitment to supporting students' pursuit of career goals and personal ambitions. Saint Louis University is laying a foundation for many collaborations, Eric said.

The 200-year-old Saint Louis University has entered into an agreement with School of Innovation and Management (SoiM), a business school from G. Narayanamma Institute of Technology and Science (for women).

Dr Samala Nagaraju, Associate Dean of SoiM and Eric S. Armbrecht, Associate Provost and Director of the Global Education Programme at Saint Louis University, exchanged the MoU.

Ashok Kallam, Founder and CEO of Indo Global Studies, which facilitated this and many other global tie-ups and collaborations said NEP 2020(National Education Program) was a welcome initiative and that the removal of restrictions, particularly bureaucratic hurdles, from the field of education mutually benefitting both India and the US on all fronts.  This tie-up is one among the many to materialise in near future, Kallam who is the local partner for Saint Louis University, said. In fact, the Saint Louis University delegation was in Hyderabad at his instance. has come to Hyderabad. 

Many American universities have been exploring their willingness to partner with India on some specific topics of interest – cyber security, healthcare, biotech, artificial intelligence, data sciences, agriculture, climate change and sustainability. Earlier students used to travel to the USA for studies, now, the trend is to study in India and in the US.  “Now the buzzword is tie-ups and collaborations.  The new regulations simplified the Tie-ups between Indian and foreign universities and allow students to get ‘dual degrees’ from both foreign and Indian institutes,” he explained and pointed out that in the process, students are getting the best of both the countries.

The University has well over 600 Indian students joining it each semester.  Over 70% of them are from both Telugu states--Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and “we would like to double this number”, he said.