New Delhi: On Thursday i.e. April 7, 2011, Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry conducted a Roundtable meeting on Higher Education. Union Minister of HRD, Shri Kapil Sibal headed the meeting. The main motive of the meeting was to prepare agendas for the forthcoming India-US Higher Education Summit.
The India-US Higher Education Summit is scheduled to be held on June 15-16, 2011 at Washington DC. As per the sources, leaders of major industry bodies like CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM as well as heads of various higher education institutions in the country were present in the meeting and share their views.
Reportedly, some reputed officials from the Ministry of External Affairs were also there in the discussions. The roundtable treasured various initiatives already in progress between the two countries India and US. Some of them are the Obama-Singh Knowledge Initiative, Yale-India Leadership Programme, Fullbright scholarships etc.
Sources said that in the meeting, it was decided to take such partnership programmes further through an institutional bilateral mechanism with active participation of the industry. As the result of the Round table, Sibal announced the constitution of the five Working Groups, among the industry leaders and academia.
The major objective of these groups will be to identify specific areas of interest and avenues for cooperation with the United States before the Summit takes place in June 2011.
The five Working Groups are namely,
- Mechanisms for knowledge partnerships (US-India Academic-Industry- Partnerships)
- Building Environment for institutional partnership
- Faculty Development initiatives and academic leadership
- Academic-Industry collaboration (institutional & research)
- Vocational & skill development (knowledge exchange)
