EU Ambassador lauds Indian students for performance in EU funded programmes

Manipal: The Ambassador of European Union (EU) to India, H E Tomasz Kozlowski has lauded the Indian students and higher education institutions here for their impressive participation in the EU-funded programmes.

Speaking to media persons at the Valley View International Hotel on Friday, December 7, he said people to people connect and cooperation in higher education are the key features of the EU–India Strategic Partnership, which is identified as one of the focus areas, whether it is in India-EU Agenda for Action 2020, Joint statement at the EU India Summit 2017 or the recently announced EU Strategy on India. Both sides have committed to take forward the cooperation through such initiatives as India’s ‘FIAN’ programme and the EU’s Erasmus+ programme.

Since the opening of the Eramus programme for the third world countries 30 years ago, India is the largest recipient of the funding under this scheme in the world. Directly supporting Indian students, Erasmus has financed close to 5800 scholarships to Indian nationals over the years. Out of them, about 250 Eramus + alumni are from Karnataka and more than 25 from Manipal university itself. In the last four years, since Erasmus Mundus upgraded into Erasmus almost 200 Indian universities have benefitted from various types of its funding, he said.

Under the capacity building programmes for higher education, Rs 55.19 Crore has been allocated for the year 2018 for Indian universities, as a partner country for Erasmus with 10 new projects involving 47 Indian universities.

Under the Erasmus programme for Master degrees, a total of 319 scholarships were awarded to post graduation students from India between 2014 and 2018 in order to pursue the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree. About 73 of these scholarships were awarded in 2018.

The Ambassador during his visit will inaugurate Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in European Studies at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), the first of its kind in India. He congratulated the leadership, faculty and students of MAHE on this achievement and stated that Manipal has always been a pioneer in promoting higher education and research in international relations in India in general and European studies in particular. He mentioned that this truly has been a long and a progressive relationship, with 13 projects financed under Erasmus culminating into the centre of excellence for European studies.

The Ambassador invited Indian students to avail the higher education opportunities in the EU and stated that the academic exchange of knowledge, ideas and contacts from higher education in the EU would not only result in double/multiple joint degrees or study abroad credits, but also would improve their linguistic skills, provide an intercultural experience and enhance employability, he said.

Dr. H S Ballal, Pro-Chancellor of Manipal University, Friederike Tschanpa and Anil Patni were present during the press meet.