Australia’s University of New South Wales to open campus in Bengaluru: Dharmendra Pradhan

The University of New South Wales is set to become the seventh Australian university to open a campus in India, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced on Monday (December 8, 2025).

The campus will come up in Bengaluru. Mr. Pradhan said the University Grants Commission’s letter of intent had been handed over to the university on the sidelines of the third Australia-India Education and Skills Council meeting in New Delhi on Monday.

At a press conference, where leaders of both countries exchanged a host of university-to-university and university-to-government agreements and MoUs, Australia’s Minister for Education, Jason Clare, said Australia had “no such education relationship with any other country in the world” as the one with India. He went on to say he was looking forward to taking the deliberations forward next year in Australia, where he hoped to take Mr. Pradhan to Australia’s first “Hindu primary school.”

Mr. Clare said it was “extraordinary” that despite having a large population tracing its roots to India, such a school did not exist “at the moment”, adding that it would be starting soon.

Ten new India-Australia research projects were announced in domains of AI, quantum, biodiversity, MedTech, sustainability, smart mobility, and space, funded by the Scheme for Promotion of Academic Research Collaboration, for which ₹9.84 crore, or 1.64 million AUD, had been sanctioned.

Mr. Pradhan noted that deliberations at these inter-ministerial levels used to focus only on higher education, but that both countries had decided to expand the discussions to the area of skills as part of the larger knowledge domain. He said that the discussions at the third AIESC, for the first time, went over to the school level and early childhood education, avenues for more CBSE-affiliated schools in Australia, and teacher professional development.

Mr. Pradhan went on to say that for the first time, discussions at the council meeting reached the area of sports education, where partnerships were being discussed to integrate sports education throughout the education years of children in India, from schools to universities, polytechnics, and ITIs. Mr. Pradhan said Australia had a culture of having its top medallists come from campuses, and a similar culture was going to be looked at for India as well.

Mr. Pradhan added that this could not come at a better time, given that Australia is set to host the Olympics in 2032 and that India is itself bidding to host the 2036 Olympics and is already preparing to host the Commonwealth Games in 2030.

Mr. Clare spoke of the relationship between India and his country as one that “gets better, stronger, deeper with every meeting”, citing the fact that the University of New South Wales would now be the seventh Australian university to establish a campus in India. Mr. Clare said the campus would offer courses in business, media, data science, and cybersecurity, among others, while Mr. Pradhan said courses would begin by the next academic session.

“The university applied in June, and the LOI is being handed over now. This is record time approval,” he said.

During the day, multiple letters of intent and MoUs were exchanged between Indian and Australian higher education and skilling bodies. These included an LoI on early childhood education between the two governments. This LoI was for aligning the CBSE (Early Childhood Care and Education) curriculum with that of Australia’s Certificate III in ECEC, promoting workforce development and “curriculum innovation”.

The James Cook University and the Government of Odisha have agreed to establish a Marine Ecological Research Centre linked to the Odisha Marine Biotechnology and Innovation Corridor.

Similarly, the University of Western Australia and the IIM in Mumbai and the IIT in Dhanbad are going to collaborate in mining exploration, mining logistics, and mining automation and sustainability. Deakin University and the IIT in Roorkee have also agreed to set up a Centre of Excellence in Disaster Resilience.