Guru Nanak Education Society brings best of European education to Tamil Nadu
A leading academic institution in Chennai has partnered with a top European institution to bring European expertise to the country
A highly successful three-nation tour of Europe by top leadership of Guru Nanak Education Society is set to bring the best of European Education to Tamil Nadu, says a press statement issued by the society.
The statement adds that the delegation was led by Manjit Singh Nayar, General Secretary and Correspondent of GNES and included Marlene Morais, Advisor and former Principal of Guru Nanak College, as well as M G Raghunathan, Principal, GNC, Swati Paliwal, Head of Internal Quality Assurance Cell and Coordinator of Guru Nanak Consultancy and Christy Jeyakumar, Dean of E-Governance.
During the visit, the delegation visited over a dozen leading educational institutions in France, Germany and Switzerland, to meet with the top management and academic leadership teams to discuss potential collaboration, with focus on bringing the best of European education to India to make it available for students all over Tamil Nadu, says GNES.
Amongst the various aspects of cooperation discussed during these meetings were guest lectures by European professors in India and vice-versa, in-person or virtually, faculty exchange programmes, student exchanges, mounting of joint degree courses, internships for European students in Indian industry.
The collaboration will allow Guru Nanak Education Society to not only upgrade its current offerings in various domains, bringing them at par with the European standards, but also open the doors for launch of new courses and new departments, as well as cement its leadership position in the domain of skill development, with a string of vocational or industrial training activities that would be launched in the due course of time, it adds.
The visit was organised in collaboration with Europe India Foundation for Excellence, a Belgian organisation that has been working with GNES over the past four years with the objective to facilitate GNES’ contacts with the leading educational and vocational development institutions across the European Union.
The visit was organised as part of the extensive and ambitious roadmap laid down by the GNES management to equip the students and faculty with the best possible educational ecosystem, but also to position GNC and sister organisations as the preferred and exclusive partners of leading educational and institutional partners from overseas.
“We have spent the last 15 years in building up the infrastructure as well as academic excellence of our institutions. Now, having placed GNC as the Number 1 college in entire Tamil Nadu, with AA+ ranking awarded by the NAAC last year. With this across-the-spectrum improvement, we believe that now we are ready to expand our horizons not only beyond Tamil Nadu, but also beyond India. And this visit to Europe was the first step taken by us to explore opportunities for tie-ups with the top institutions across Europe,” says Nayar, General Secretary & Correspondent.
“The objective of this visit was for us to not only get a first-hand experience of what is happening in some of the top European institutions, but more critically to see how we can bring that excellence to India and how we can provide our students as well as faculty, the exposure to the latest and best advancements in various fields of education and training,” says Morais, Advisor and former Principal of GNC.
MoU for Indo-French Academic Partnership
One of the most significant outcomes of the visit was the signing of MoUs between GNES and two leading educational and training institutions in France, La Fabrique and ISIPCA, which are both brands of the Ecole Supérieure de la Production de la Mode et du Luxe.
ISIPCA is part of the International School of the Greater Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, dedicated to Higher Education in Business and Science in Perfumery, Cosmetics, and Food Flavourings. It provides French or English-taught Undergraduate to Postgraduate Programmes, SPOCs and Summer Schools specialised in the French Art of Fine and Functional Fragrances, and White and Coloured Cosmetic Products, and Flavourings with Food Applications.
La Fabrique is another brand of the Ecole Supérieure de la Production de la Mode et du Luxe and is a Vocational School of the Greater Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, dedicated to Higher Education in Fashion Production Management including Leather Goods, Retail Visual Merchandising and Interior Decoration. It provides Undergraduate to Graduate Programmes, MooC, and Summer Student Programme specialised in the French Art of know-how.
The MoUs with both institutions have come after over a year-long discussion and cooperation between the three organisations and both the MoUs lay down a clear roadmap for rapidly mounting activities on the ground as part of mutual cooperation.
According to ESPML, this new Indo-French strategic cooperation was successfully introduced by Europe-India Foundation for Excellence (EIFE), and sealed by the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between Nayar as the General Secretary and Correspondent at Guru Nanak Educational Society, and Marie-France Zumofen as the Executive Director at the Ecole Supérieure de la Production de la Mode et du Luxe, on Monday May 22nd, 2023.
“All my teams and I are deeply honoured to collaborate with Guru Nanak College and Guru Nanak Educational Society. We are looking forward to start cooperating soon in India and France. We are all eager to share our mutual best practices, academic knowledge, and vocational know-how to offer students first-rate joint or consecutive vocational training programs or short-term programs. These programmes will enable them to acquire the skills required by employers in the luxury industries, companies and retailers in India or France or in many other countries around the world,” says Zumofen.
This collaboration aims to explore further potential cooperation opportunities between the two parties in higher education and applied research, and innovation.
