US keen to remove barriers in educational co-op with India

Washington, Oct 13 (PTI) Terming as "challenging" the
process for US universities to partner with Indian institutes,
a senior Obama administration official has said America wants
"to do everything" to remove barriers and help its educational
institutes create centres of learning in India.
"The process for our schools to partner with Indian
counterparts or to create new institutions of learning in
India remains challenging. That is one of the reasons we
organised the Summit. We want to do everything we can to lift
the barriers to greater cooperation between our educational
institutions and help these ties flourish," Deputy Secretary
of State William Burns said here.
Addressing a gathering of academicians and business
leaders at an US-India Business Council event, Burns said the
flourishing economic and diplomatic ties between the two
countries notwithstanding, level of cooperation in education
remains much to be desired.
"For all the benefits - for our people, for our
economies, for our diplomacy - it remains a long and sometimes
arduous journey from India to study in America. Our education
system is full of thousands of excellent schools. But it is
also decentralized and not always easy to understand from the
outside," he said.
Burns lamented that the number of American students
studying in India is also far too few.
He said at a time when India aims to modernize its
economy and America is looking to grow its exports as a source
of economic renewal, educational exchanges would help both the
countries to move forward.
"In knowledge economies like ours, growth depends on
innovation, moving new ideas from the laboratory, design floor
and classroom into the marketplace. It depends on reaching new
markets," Burns said.
Speaking on the occasion, Indian minister for Human
Resources Development Kapil Sibal said it is time the US
reaches out and realises that it has "as much a stake in India
as India has a stake in the betterment of the life of its own
people."
Sibal said solutions to problems of the world including
food security, water shortage and climate change will come
through research and development and will be housed and
embedded in the educational institutions.
The two countries have a lot to gain if they partner in
areas of faculty development, quality education and
technology, he said.
"We have to partner to find solutions for tomorrow. India
is the land of opportunities, whatever you do in India, it
will serve as a benchmark for the rest of the world," he said.
Burns said Indian and US educators should use the summit
to seek out new avenues for cooperation that the two nations
have not yet fully explored, including community colleges,
distance learning and new technologies in education, part of a
robust higher education mix.
This, he said, will be beneficial to students, societies,
economies as well as the world.
"The truth is that we have crossed a threshold in our
relations where -- for both of us, for the first time -- our
success at home and abroad depends on our cooperation."
Burns said America's vision of a secure, stable,
prosperous 21st century world has at its heart a strong
partnership with a rising India. PTI YAS
RCL