Top Indian university opens first offshore campus in Africa

The first international campus of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras - IIT Madras - has officially opened in the Tanzanian archipelago of Zanzibar.

The Zanzibar campus offers a four-year Bachelor of Science degree in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, and a two-year Master of Technology program in Data Science and AI.

IIT Madras, a public technical university in Chennai, is one of the best universities in India.

Forty-six students from India and Zanzibar have already registered for the BSc course.

"When I saw the opportunity to study in Zanzibar, I decided to go for it," said Aradhya Goswami a student from Bihar, eastern India. "I wanted to be part of history," she said.

India and Zanzibar share a long history dating back to the 1800s. The Indian community in Zanzibar is one of the oldest communities to settle in East Africa.

Students in the Zanzibar campus will have a chance to study at partner institutions of IIT Madras in UK and Australia, along with semester exchange options at the parent campus in Chennai.

This article originally appeared on BBC News.

Image via BBC.