While India is now emerging as a key hub for international education, drawing top students and global investment into its transnational education sector, the roots of this growth can be traced back to policy reforms introduced nearly three decades ago.
Once dominated by publicly funded institutions, India’s education landscape shifted significantly after the 1991 economic reforms, opening the door to private investment.
While many private institutions took advantage of new policies like deemed university status and state private university laws, one Noida-based institution stood out by starting with a business school instead of the usual engineering or medical programs – once a norm in India. Since then, Amity has grown into a global leader in higher education.
“This is an amazing story of our founder, Ashok Chauhan, who after spending more than three decades in Europe, came to India with one passion, one aim, and one ambition – that we should create institutions, universities, and an education group which should be research-driven and give students careers, not just education,” Gurinder Singh, group vice-chancellor at Amity University, tells The PIE News.
At the time, Singh explains, there were no private universities in India and “high-quality education was not at all there”.
“With that passion, [Chauhan] came and tried to create a team. I got the privilege to be working at Amity from day one,” he says.
“We started off as a business school. We created the first school called Amity Business School in 1996 and then started working from there.”
By 2002, we were one of the leading players in higher education in India… Then we thought, let’s go global and create our own campuses
Gurinder Singh, Amity University
Fast forward 30 years, and Amity is everywhere in Indian households, on their TVs, newspapers, and social media.
Today, it spans 11 campuses across India, offering programs in business management, engineering, media and communication, psychology, international relations, liberal arts, and more. But Amity’s expansion efforts haven’t been confined to India alone.
Over the years, the private research university has set up 16 international campuses in major global cities, each shaped by local regulations, curricula, and typically smaller infrastructure compared to its Indian counterparts.
“Because the vision was international, we made it mandatory for all students to learn one foreign language. We offered seven languages, and they had to specialise in one. Students also had to do part of their program abroad. That made a lot of difference,” says Singh.
“By 2002, we were one of the leading players in higher education in India. The business school was ranked among the top 20 in India. Then we thought, let’s go global and create our own campuses.”
While Amity’s London campus got off to a smooth start through a collaboration with Birkbeck, University of London for lectures and facilities – offering degrees accredited by the University of Bolton – its entry into Singapore wasn’t as straightforward.
“We franchised programs of UK universities and started offering degrees. It’s a very interesting story because when we went to Singapore and met the education minister, he said, ‘Don’t come to Singapore, we are closing down,’” Singh remembers.
“But we thought we should create a quality ecosystem, and we got the EduTrust approvals eventually, which are very difficult.”
Despite the initial resistance, the Singapore campus now offers a range of programs including MBAs, executive MBAs, and courses in computer science, communication, AI, and data science.
“Establishing new universities globally is what excites us most. It’s challenging, but we love it,” Singh tells The PIE.
And with its Dubai campus catering towards Indian diaspora families in the Middle East, Amity’s launch in the US in 2016 marked a major investment in its global expansion plans.
As well as purchasing the 170-acre campus of St. John’s University in New York, the institution partnered with Adelphi University to offer global and MBA programmes at its campus.
“We launched a three-continent program where we started in India, second part in London, and third part in the US. So we collaborated with NYU and started offering our programs jointly with them for the three continent program. But then gradually we thought, why not open up a campus in the US?,” says Singh.
While branch campuses have long been central to transnational education, institutions like Amity are increasingly engaging with international K-12 education, local government priorities, and virtual learning in different countries.
In addition to its university campuses, Amity runs a network of schools across India, offering CBSE, IB, and Cambridge IGCSE curricula. Internationally, it has established school campuses in the Netherlands, Nairobi, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore. The group has also partnered with the UK’s Harrow School, which has been seeking to expand its presence globally.
“We collaborated with Harrow and brought Harrow School to Bangalore for good. And now, the second Harrow School is coming up in New York,” Singh explains.
In recent years, Amity has also starred to appeal to Central Asian and African countries, where the demand for technology-driven and e-learning solutions is rapidly growing.
For example, the President and Prime Minister of Uzbekistan visited India and saw that one of Amity’s “core strengths” lay in ICT, they worked with the group to establish the country’s first ICT-focussed university.
“Similarly, when [A.P.J Abdul Kalam] became the President of India, he took a delegation of vice-chancellors, 19 of us, to Africa. He had a vision to give virtual education to the continent,” Singh reminisces.
“Amity became a partner in this effort, and we’ve educated over 80,000 African students free of cost. The Ministry of External Affairs and Amity came together to make it happen,” he adds.
Amity’s investments in business and e-learning have enabled it to develop educational content and support other universities, according to Singh.
“The vision is simple – we want to do good for the community. It’s not-for-profit. We don’t earn a single dollar from it,” he says.
“Whatever Amity is earning, we’re reinvesting into research. We became the largest partner of the current government of India for research – be it innovations, filing patents, commercialisation, setting up world-class labs, or creating ecosystems with industry.”
With its alumni working at corporations like Google, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft, and nearly 40% of students completing internships with top brands both in India and abroad, Singh believes that employability will be a key demand that international universities rushing to establish branch campuses in India must fulfill.
“Most students doing joint or dual degrees will spend part of their program in India and part abroad. But the real challenge is ensuring these students become more employable,” he says.
“The big question is what quality of education these foreign brands can bring to India. If students receive the same opportunities here as they do at the universities’ home campuses, those universities will grow.”
