Bangalore: The Azim Premji Foundation, promoted by IT bellwether Wipro's chairman Azim Premji, on Wednesday tied up with Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to set up a school of education at the latter's campus in Hyderabad for offering degrees and other related programmes.

The foundation will provide financial support to the new school for infrastructure, programmes and to conduct research in the field of education.

"Improving quality of education must be one of the country's key goals. We think this task needs organizations, which have shared vision to collaborate. We are honored to collaborate with TISS, a pioneering institution on social issues," foundation chief executive Dileep Ranjekar said in a statement here.

To become operational in the next two years, the Azim Premji School of Education (APSE) will leverage the work being carried at the 75-year-old Tata Institute and Azim Premji University, being set up by the foundation in Bangalore.

"The Azim Premji University is uniquely focused on education and development. Our collaboration with the foundation will strengthen both the institutions, towards the goal of improving education in the country," TISS director S. Parasuraman said.

Both institutions believe the joint new initiative would need a large cadre of capable and committed education sector professionals and experts, as well as pursuit of high quality research, relevant for India.

The Azim Premji University will commence the new academic year (2011-12) in July with three post-graduate programmes - Master of Arts (MA) in education and development and Master's in teacher education. IANS