India, US need higher levels of collaboration in education: Sibal

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has stressed the need for a structured multi-level collaboration between India and the US, especially in the field of education.

"India and the United States need higher levels of collaboration, especially in education and by structured and multi-level collaboration, we can work towards solving many of the world's problems," Sibal told a gathering in Washington yesterday where he will attend the first Indo-US higher education summit beginning tomorrow.

According to a HRD Ministry release here, Sibal expressed hope that India will emerge as the "centre for human resources for the world" in the coming years as it reaps the benefits of the demographic dividend.

He was of the view that there are many challenges that beset the globe and the solutions for these challenges would have to be found through research based in nations such as India that confront these challenges and also offer quality human resource for such research to be facilitated.

He was delivering a talk on 'Transforming India into an Education Hub' at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, which was also addressed by Indian Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao and Karl Inderfurth of the Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies.

The summit, which will be chaired by Sibal and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, aims at strengthening collaboration between institutes in both the countries in areas of research, accreditation and award of joint degrees.