Manipal Global Education to set up a 135-acre university in Sri Lanka

Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE), a unit of the Manipal Group, is going to set up a 135-acre university in Sri Lanka. 

The campus, located in Kalutara, would come up in three years but the courses would begin by the end of this year on its temporary campus in Colombo, said Ravi Panchanadan, chief executive officer of MaGE.

MaGE had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Sri Lankan government one and a half years ago, Panchanadan said. “The Sri Lankan government in its vision 2025 envisages itself to be a hub for digital and technology industries. It has also expressed its desire to be a centre for international students,” he said.

 

Manipal Global Education Services is already running varsities in Nepal, Malaysia, Dubai and Antigua. 

The proposed campus will offer non-medical courses such as engineering, life sciences, media, commerce and arts, followed by a medical course. When fully operational, the campus will house around 3,500 students.

According to Panchanadan, along with academic buildings, MaGE provides laboratories, hostels, and facilities such as sports and recreation. Every year, 500 international students graduate from the medicine courses and around 800 graduate from the non-medicine courses offered by MaGE at its different universities. 

Manipal Group set up its first global college in 1994 in Nepal called the Manipal College of Medical Sciences in Pokhara.

Later in 1997, the Melaka Manipal Medical College was set up as the first Indo-Malaysian joint venture in private medical education. It later established the GlobalNxt University in Malaysia which delivers online graduate programmes. 

The Manipal University Dubai was established in 2000, which today has about 1,500 students from 26 nations. The American University of Antigua is a medical school founded in 2004 to address the growing shortage of physicians in the United States. 

With the Indian government mulling to come up with an online university policy which is expected to give an impetus to higher education, MaGE’s Prolearn programme is offering several online courses in the field of information technology, data analytics, and data sciences. It is also going to come up with a short-term cloud computing and blockchain programme in the next few months. 

“These courses also have an element of training which increases employability quotient,” added Panchanadan.