Pune: Symbiosis International (Deemed University), one of India's leading educational institutes imparting quality education for over 38 years, is getting ready to host the International Conference on Internationalization of Higher Education with special reference to Management Education, at Symbiosis Knowledge Village on October 14 and 15, 2010.

Symbiosis has taken the initiative to provide academicians, business leaders, students and researchers a platform to present and discuss various aspects of Internationalization of Higher Education.

The conference will see scholars present papers on exploring emerging trends in internationalization of higher education and how to apply them to make Indian higher education world class.

It will also examine the special challenges in internationalizing Management education, which has a strong local/national dimension - unlike the pure sciences or even social sciences like Economics that remain constant across boundaries.

The Indian higher education system has witnessed a significant expansion in the recent years. According to the report by FICCI Higher Education Summit 2009, India has more than 400 universities and 20,000 colleges. Out of these, about 63% are privately held, unaided institutions.

Though these are positive trends, the Indian higher education system continues to show many shortcomings which create challenges in fulfilling future expectations, mainly arising due to globalization.

In spite of having more higher education institutions than any other country in the world, very few Indian higher education institutions feature in the list of leading institutions in the world.

At the same time, globalization has brought the world closer, which has expanded the horizons of Indian students who are expecting a world class education from Indian higher education institutions.

Likewise, the growing competition among universities and other entities that now develop, distribute and market education are compelling academic leaders to seek unique ways to differentiate their programs from others' programs.

The debate amongst the scholars attending the conference and the impending results would be of immense interest since their comments would lay the path for management education in the future.

In 2002, the Government of India had conferred on Symbiosis the status of "deemed to be University". In 2006, the University Grants Commission had renamed the university as Symbiosis International University.

Symbiosis Institutes such as SIBM, SIIB, SIMS, SCMHRD, SITM, SSLC and SIMC together attract over 350 of India's top companies for campus recruitments. The university is home to over 27,000 Indian and international students and over 1,00,000 students off campus.