Washington: Some of the best American
universities and educational institutes are "extremely
interested" in coming to India and are eagerly waiting for the
relevant law to be put in place so that they can move forward,
Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal, has said.
"They are not only extremely interested, but they are
also proactive in expressing their hope that the law (in
India) would be put in place very soon so that actually they
can come forward and come to India as foreign education
providers," Sibal told Indian reporters, winding up his
week-long visit to the US on Friday evening.
During his visit to New York and Washington, Sibal met
presidents of a number of best US universities, including
those of the Harvard University, Boston University, Yale
University and MIT.
He also met US Secretary for Education, Arny Duncan and
the two leaders agreed to establish a US-India Education
Council, which would comprise top American academicians,
university officials and representatives from other
educational institutions so as to promote public-private
partnership in India's higher education sector.
Sibal yesterday had a roundtable with representatives of
other top US universities from various parts of the country;
besides meeting eminent Indian-American academicians and a
delegation of PANIIT.
Describing his visit as "exceptionally satisfying", the
minister said that during his meetings he explained that "we
are reforming our education system and setting up a number of
educational institutions.
"We also indicated to them we are hopefully going to
introduce the Foreign Education Providers' Bill as and when it
gets cleared from the Cabinet."
"This will allow them flexibility to have any kind of
arrangements with partners in India or for that matter they
would be entitled to set up institutions there," Sibal said.
The visit to America, he said, was to explore the
possibilities of tying up with high quality globally
recognised education providers.
"If we could actually tie up with some of these world
class American universities and persuade them to enter into
arrangements with the existing institutions or setting up new
innovation universities in India, we thought that then we
would set an example of the level of excellence we aspire for
so that other institutions in the higher education which will
come up should be able to match that benchmark," he noted.
"We have told them that they would be like private
unaided institutions in India. Whatever law is applicable to
private unaided institutions, I guess the same law would apply
to foreign education providers who are unaided," he said in
response to a question.
"All that they want is a level-playing field, which we
will give them," the minister said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, October 31, 2009, 10:45