Q&A Bilaterals Q. Highlight the areas of cooperation between India and USA in the education sector. Focus on GIAN. A. India -USA Education In the Quacquarelli Symonds rankings not a single Indian university made it to the list of the world’s top 200 institutions. Fifty US universities found a place. Therefore, it makes eminent sense that India and the USA cooperate in education and skills development to boost the ‘employability’ of would-be entrants to the job market in India. There is an ongoing US-India collaboration in education :Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative, or OSI, named after US President Barack Obama and Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh. OSI aims to strengthen collaboration and build partnerships between American and Indian institutions of higher learning, with the goal of promoting educational reform and fostering academic cooperation. Cooperation is taking place in areas like online learning. Indian universities and their US counterparts have shown interest in scaling up efforts in online open education: MOOCs. Global Initiative of Academic Networks in Higher Education(GIAN) has been signed . It would also help tap the US talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs to engage with Indian institutes.The government is likely to join hands with a consortium of American institutions to help develop the newly announced Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Goa. We are not looking at financial investment much but need their top institutions’ help in course designing, faculty training and exchanges of other intellectual capital. During secretary of state John Kerry’s visit to New Delhi in July, India and the US said in a joint statement that the two sides had identified “education and skills development as an important area of future cooperation”. They called for a partnership between Indian and the US testing services institutions to improve nation-wide student assessments in India. In 2013, India decided to open 200 community colleges, or institutions that will impart region-specific, demand-oriented skills to improve employability of job aspirants, and enlisted the American Association of Community Colleges for handholding. The project hasn’t made much headway and would need to find direction from the new government. The proposed foreign education Bill was a key topic of discussion during the Prime Minister’s US visit. Global Initiative of Academic Networks(GIAN) The Indo-US joint statement said: “The President (Obama) welcomed Indias proposal to establish the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN or knowledge) under which India would invite and host up to 1,000 American academics each year to teach in centrally-recognized Indian universities.The idea is to invite and host up to 1,000 American academics every year to teach in centrally-recognized Indian varsities. The academics -mainly from the fields of science and innovations -may visit India at their convenience. The purpose is to expose Indian students to the experience and expertise of the best of Indian scientists and US academicians.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 10:31:00 +0000
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