Edu-leaders

The Ministry of Human Resource Development organized a roundtable conference on Higher Education for the forthcoming India-US Higher Education Summit.

The Summit is scheduled to be held on June 15-16, 2011 at Washington DC.

Leaders of major industry bodies like CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, heads of various higher education institutions in the country and officials from the Ministry of External Affairs participated in the conference. The roundtable appreciated the initiatives already underway between the two countries, like the Obama-Singh Knowledge Initiative, Yale-India Leadership Programme and the Fullbright Scholarship. It was also decided that such partnership programmes be taken further through an institutional bilateral mechanism with active participation of the industry.

Kapil Sibal, Union Minister of Human Resource Development, announced the constitution of five working groups, from among the industry leaders and academia, to identify specific areas of interest and avenues for co-operation with the United States before the summit is held. The groups will look at Mechanisms for knowledge partnerships (US-India Academic-Industry-Partnerships), Buildings environment for institutional partnership, Faculty development initiatives and academic leadership, Academia-Industry collaboration (institutional and research) and Vocational and skill development (knowledge exchange).