The offshore campus of IIT-Madras in Tanzania's Zanzibar is set to be inaugurated in early November, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Tuesday.

The minister made the announcement at an event to confer an honorary doctorate by Jawaharlal Nehru University on Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who is on a four-day visit to India.

"I am happy that the first offshore campus of any IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) is being set up in Zanzibar. I am told that IIT-Madras' Zanzibar campus is scheduled to be inaugurated early next month," the minister said.

"This institute will prove to be a milestone in educational cooperation between two nations and continents by providing students from Tanzania and other African countries access to world-class engineering and technology education, which will help in nation building and drive economic growth, technology, development and research and innovation in Africa," Pradhan added.

An MoU, signed in July between India and Tanzania, was the final procedural step that paved the way for the campus.

The institute will offer two full-time academic programmes -- a four-year Bachelor of Science in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and a two-year Master of Technology in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.

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