India to Setup Centre of Excellence at Egypt’s Al-Azhar University

Sanjay Bhattacharyya, India’s Ambassador to Cairo, revealed that India would establish a Centre of Excellence at Al-Azhar University, Egypt. The main objective for taking this initiative is to enhance the cooperation in education between India and Egypt. The centre will be established in the engineering department of the varsity in 2017. For this purpose, Bhattacharya held negotiations with Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Shiekh of Al-Azhar University regarding various possibilities to enhance the cooperation between two countries in education.

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Bhattacharya explained that a team of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) from India visited the Department of Information Technology and Engineering at Al-Azhar University and took the decision to establish the Centre for Excellence. The centre is expected to kick-start early next year. Currently, a total number of 150 students are pursuing various courses in the varsity.

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He further added that Al-Azhar University has been performing exceptionally well in all the areas. The varsity has been offering courses in different disciplines instead of teaching only Theology. The varsity will get support from the C-DAC which will enable the students to secure jobs in IT sector. He thanked the Grand Sheikh of the varsity for his cooperation and support and appreciated his initiative of promoting cooperation in education.

He explained that Indian government would fund the project. Other issues like spreading knowledge about moderate Islam were also discussed in the meeting. He cited that India and Egypt are not immune to radicalism and terrorism.