Tokyo varsity seeks tie up with IGNOU

New Delhi: In a bid to attract more Indian students to study in Japan, the University of Tokyo has sought collaboration with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), a statement said on Wednesday.

"Presently, there are 1.4 lakh Indian students studying in Japan and the Japanese government wants to invite more and more Indian students, mainly in the field of research in science and technology," said Hiroshi Yoshino, director, University of Tokyo."We invite 60 students from all over the world for full scholarship, but, unfortunately, there are none from India at the moment," added Yoshino.

According to IGNOU Vice Chancellor M. Aslam, both the countries should benefit from the collaboration and he would also like the IGNOU technical staff to be trained at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) under the faculty-exchange programme.

"With such collaboration, more and more Indian students would seek Japan as their destination in near future," said Aslam.

The JICA is the primary Japanese governmental agency responsible for technical cooperation component of Japan's bilateral official development assistance programme.