In a first, India will become home to a Centre for the International Astronomical Union’s Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE), to strengthen efforts for enhancing astronomy education in the country. The OAE Centre will be managed by Pune’s Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), in association with Mumbai’s Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (HBCSE-TIFR).

The OAE India Centre is one of the four new global centres announced by the IAU, the other three being in China, Egypt and the Republic of Korea. Founded in 2019, the IAU previously established such offices in Italy, Nepal and Cyprus. It pioneers education of astronomical topics with an integration of subjects such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics, to primary and secondary school students. Nodes and centres in the seven countries will now help in supporting the mission.