London’s SOAS University has partnered with an Indian institution to co-create a master’s degree focused on climate justice, with the same tuition fees for both domestic and international students.
The National Law University Delhi will work with SOAS to design, deliver and award a joint postgraduate degree in Environmental Justice in South Asia, aiming to bring together expertise on sustainability issues from the Global South and North.
Students will complete half of the course at SOAS in London and the remainder at NLUD in Delhi.
Both international and domestic students will be charged £12,354 for the one-year course.
Typically, international students pay more than their domestic counterparts to study in the UK. International postgraduate tuition fees range from £9,000 to £30,000, with the average cost estimated to be £17,109 per year, according to the British Council.
Adam Habib, director of SOAS, has previously criticised the disparity between international and domestic student fees in the UK, describing the markups for foreign students as exploitative and calling for a rethink of the system.
The degree – and fee structure – is part of the university’s strategy of creating “equitable partnerships” with universities in the Global South.
“The major problems of our age span national boundaries”
Earlier in 2023, SOAS partnered withthe University of the Witwatersrand to launch a joint three-year PhD in Applied Development Economics – also with a single fee structure.
“The major problems of our age span national boundaries,” said Habib. “We wish to demonstrate with this new partnership how universities in the Global North and the Global South can come together to remove barriers to education and ramp up the international exchange of expertise to help address the crises we face.”
Roopa Madhav, professor of law at NLUD and an environmental law specialist, said, “Globally, higher education in environmental justice lacks the combined South-North perspective. Through this new partnership, we are bringing together students, academics, and experts at a scale that sets us apart from standalone programmes currently offered in either the United Kingdom or in India.”
