Karnataka Minister invites Wolverhampton University of U.K. to establish campus in Bengaluru

Higher Education Minister M.C. Sudhakar invited the Wolverhampton University of United Kingdom (U.K.) to establish their campus in Bengaluru.

During the discussion of ‘Beyond Futures - Festival of Research and Innovation’ at Wolverhampton University, he said, “We have already established Wolverhampton–Bengaluru Research and Innovation Centre (WBC), a joint initiative of the University of Wolverhampton and Bengaluru City University (BCU). We already have Imperial College of London in Bengaluru and Liverpool University has signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) to establish a campus. Now, we invite Wolverhampton to establish its campus in Bengaluru. This could strengthen the quality education in Karnataka.”

Further, the Minister stated that the Bangalore University (BU) has already signed an MoU with Wolverhampton University. “Our association with the university started last year and we have progressed a lot. Now, we want to have a collaboration for PhD programmes. If the Wolverhampton University is ready for student exchange, we can even ask Karnataka government to sponsor them as many of our students from economically weaker sections,” he added.

UHS in the model of NHS

The Karnataka government is also planning to implement Universal Health Service in line with the National Health Service (NHS) by U.K. government where the health service is completely free.

During the discussion with NHS representatives, Minister for Medical Education Sharan Prakash Patil requested a study by NHS on Karnataka’s health system. “Karnataka has tried implementing free health care for everyone, but somehow it did not work out. Now, if NHS conducts a study about how to implement it in the Karnataka health system, it will help us to migrate from our system to universal health system in next 10 years,” he said.

Responding to the request, Tonny Veenith, professor, University of Wolverhampton and Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, said, “Yes, it’s absolutely possible, we can have a discussion on this. There is so much that we can learn and implement together.” He mentioned that NHS is already associated with several institutions from Karnataka including JSS academy of higher education and research Mysuru for clinical trails in cancer.