UPEI President Abd-El-Aziz signs MOUs while on trade mission to India
UPEI President and Vice-Chancellor Alaa Abd-El-Aziz signed two memorandums of understanding so far this week, with Chitkara University and Punjab Agricultural University, as part of an Ontario-PEI trade mission to India.
The University of Prince Edward Island is accompanying provincial government and Island business representatives to four cities: Delhi, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Mumbai. During the six-day mission, President Abd-El-Aziz and Director of International Relations Barbara Campbell will visit 12 universities in these four cities to develop new partnerships in research and teaching.
President Abd-El-Aziz says he is encouraged by the signing of MOUs with the first two universities that he has met with, and expects more agreements could be signed before the end of his visit.
“Our overall goal on this mission is to begin the process of recruiting both undergraduate and graduate students to UPEI,” commented President Abd-El-Aziz. “As the country with the fastest-growing GDP and the world’s second-most-populous country, we cannot ignore India. UPEI has almost doubled its percentage of international students in the last five years to twenty per cent of our student body. We now have close to 860 students from 70 countries, but there is tremendous growth potential with India as we currently have only nine Indian students studying at UPEI.”
The University of Prince Edward Island and Chitkara University, in Chandigarh, renewed an MOU for the purposes of furthering cooperation in education and academic fields to explore the establishment of exchange programs and collaborative research/study opportunities for both students and faculty members. They agreed to work together in the areas of engineering, business, science, mathematical and computational sciences, nursing, environmental studies, and leadership and culture.
The University Prince Edward Island and Punjab Agricultural University, in Ludhiana, signed an MOU to collaborate in programming and research for sustainable design engineering and plant biology.
President Abd-El-Aziz and Dr. Campbell have joined Premier Wade MacLauchlan and Minister Heath MacDonald along with representatives from Aspin Kemp and Associates, Coles Associates, Portsmouth Atlantic on the mission to India. The joint mission with Ontario is intended to confirm recent Indian business investments in Prince Edward Island and generate new investment as part of ongoing efforts to promote Prince Edward Island goods, services, and expertise.
“This opportunity to participate with the Province of PEI on this mission to India is a great boost to our recruitment and partnership development efforts in this emerging market,” added President Abd-El-Aziz.
About UPEI’s Partners
Chitkara University is a private university in North India, offering comprehensive and integrated multidisciplinary full-time degree programs in diverse academic fields including: Engineering, Business Management, Nursing and Healthcare, Hospitality, Architecture, Mass Media and Communications, Education and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research. The university has almost 10,000 full time students and nearly 500 international students from over nine countries and more than 600 tenured faculty members.
The Punjab Agricultural University is located in Ludhiana City, Punjab State in northwest India. The PAU performs the integrated functions of teaching, research and extension in agriculture, agricultural engineering, home science and allied disciplines. The PAU has played a key role in increasing food grain production in the Punjab State. It has also made notable contributions in increasing livestock and poultry production. The Punjab Agricultural University has four constituent colleges: College of Agriculture, College of Agricultural Engineering, College of Home Science, and College of Basic Sciences and Humanities. The university, through 28 departments in the four constituent colleges, offers 31 Master's and 30 PhD programs.
