Saturday, October 31, 2009

Kapil Sibal talks to the US universities


Two reports with news about what HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has been doing in the last couple of days in the US.

The first one is from BU Today, Boston University's newspaper:

“We are looking at institutions of excellence,” says Sibal. “We would like the best in the world to come to India, and it is in that sense that we would welcome Boston University.”

He says that India’s population — vast, young, and eager to learn — presents a great opportunity for U.S. institutions of higher learning.

“India has about 560 million people who are less than 25 years of age,” Sibal says. “The number of children going to school is 220 million, and a substantial percentage of those children will have to graduate. So we need educational institutions, and not all of those institutions can be provided by the government.”

The second is from The Economic Times with some stuff about what he said at a press meet:

Government has promised a level playing field to top US institutions in a bid to encourage foreign investment in the education sector as New Delhi seeks partnerships with global institutions to provide quality education at home.

"With the expansion of the higher education sector and the needs of Indian students, we need not just to allow education providers in India to grow, but we also need to provide for foreign investment in the education sector," India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said at a press conference here Friday.

Sibal, who was here to seek partnership with leading American universities for an Indian initiative to set up 14 innovation universities to push research and development, said he was encouraged by the response, which made the trip "exceptionally satisfying".

3 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    Sibal knows very well that all foreign companies make investments in India because of low labor cost and high profits.

    If US Universities will not be allowed to take profit back home why will they invest in India? Sibal has been saying that profit by US universities needs to be reinvested in India.

    Only time will tell how many US Universities will open their campuses.

    The only positive thing may happen is that some faculty from IIT/IIM/IISc will have more and may be better opportunities.

  2. Anonymous said...

    Here is a link to video recording of Mr. Sibal's talk at MIT
    http://techtv.mit.edu/tags/5218-sibal/videos/4310-mit-india-forum-2009
    As is clear from the talk, the issue of great discussion in future will be whether US univs will get to do whatever they want or will it be steered by govt. rules to focus partly on local interests. If it is former will it be in making India more competitive in advanced R&D job opportunities and infrastructure.

  3. Anonymous said...

    Thanks for the link. I saw the video.

    Sibal did not answer the girl asking about dependence of Indian farmers on patented seeds and fertilizers if genetically modified food is allowed. Instead he gave it a different twist like a seasoned lawyer and upcoming politician would do.

    Same for the last boy who asked about disabled students.

    Sibal appeared to be keen on presenting his Harvard credentials without talking any specific plan of foreign Universities presence in India. Talking of globalization and its benefit is very generic.