Pankaj Jain, Regional Director India Subcontinent, UTS College Australia tells about the student exchange programs conducted by them.

UTS University has also signed some articulation agreements in India, says Pankaj Jain, Regional Director India Subcontinent, UTS College Australia in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group.
What is the vision and mission statement of your UTS College?
We are actually University of Technology Sydney College, we are affiliated and fully owned by UTS university, so we are the pathway provider for UTS university. Our main aim is to help students who do not directly get into UTS university by providing them a pathway option of like diplomas or foundation and even pre-masters and masters level now. So basically, we have around 45000 students at the university which is a big thing, located in Sydney so very popular for engineering, the name itself says technology, its very popular for business, design, fashion, architecture. We do all the courses, location is also very strategic so it makes a lot of sense. Sydney, Melbourne these are two very big cities of Australia so lot of students go from South Asia.
What are your initiatives for student exchange and faculty exchange programs between the nations?
Basically, as UTS college we have TNE agreements across China, we have in Indonesia, Vietnam, we have in Sri Lanka our own campus, UTS college. We have tied up with East West University in Bangladesh, we are exploring some tie-ups in India and Nepal also. Where TNE like Transnational education where one year will be studied in local partner institution and 2 years the student goes to Australia to study. Besides this UTS University also has signed some articulation agreements in India which are like tie-up sort of thing so they are also working on those.
In your perspective how does such kind of educational gatherings where you can see representation of the government, corporates, education leaders, helps overall education fraternity to collaborate?
I think it’s a very important forum because when you are doing video conferencing and skype meetings people are not able to meet people, here when people interact during high tea, during lunch, during conferences and after conferences it gives them a good forum to at least meet people, exchange cards, discuss somethings and at least they can learn some example instead of doing just a virtual conference. So, I think physical conferences are the future which will happen and I think it’s a big learning exercise for all, even government people, private people, universities, schools etc.