Ahead of the next week’s India-U.S. education dialogue, the United States Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said there is chance to provide a much better education for thousands of young people in India.
“I think the challenges India faces dwarf — make ours look relatively simple. But I think there’s a chance to provide a much better education for hundreds and hundreds and thousands of young people in India,” Mr. Duncan told reporters at a White House news conference.
“Whatever we can do to help as they build the next system of community colleges, as they scale up what’s working, as American institutions start to set up campuses in India, we want to be a great partner,” he said.
“I just absolutely believe that a rising tide lifts all boats. And the more young people across India are getting a world-class education, that’s a great thing for your country and for ours as well,” Mr. Duncan said in response to a question.
The Education Secretary praised his Indian counterpart, Kapil Sibal, HRD Minister.
“We have a great working relationship with my counterpart in India. He is a man, I think, of tremendous vision and courage,” Mr. Duncan said.
Next week, Mr. Sibal and the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would host the next round of India-U.S. Education Dialogue. The Education Summit will focus on two key areas: advanced research and innovation and workforce development, specifically, community colleges, the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake said on Monday.
“With respect to higher education collaboration, I am delighted that we will announce during the dialogue the first eight partnership projects to be funded jointly by the United States and India through the Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative.
These three-year, approximately quarter-million dollar grants will be used for joint projects between American and Indian universities in the areas of food security, energy, climate change and public health, among others,” Mr. Blake said.
Keywords: India-U.S. education summit
School education in the U.S has been in a huge mess for a number of years.Nobody seems to know how to clean it.Apart from an unacceptable dropout rate,many that pass through the system successfully have very poor skills in reading and math.It is therefore strange that the U.S is going to help India in this field.
Mr. Duncan: Will you please for heaven's sake stop talking about Indian eduation - which is positively absolutely far far better than American education - and concnetrate on improving your own qunatitiy and quality of education? Do you call community college type education a WORLDCLASS EDUCATION? And highschool diploma holders as Highschool GRADUATE? And is that what you are pushing India to be?
Indians are increasingly getting aware of American ploy to degrade Indian education system from top to bottom (from IITs IIMs to highschool)by controlling ministers like Sibbal, who is constantly pushing the agenda to dilute the Indian education quality and system, so that it does not edge further over U.S.
Of course there is going to be a hue and cry from certian predictable quarters that Indian Universities will lose 'academic freedom' if US universites are goint to enter the education field. The fact remains that most of the universities have lost their academic relevance because (1) they have been made battlegrounds for selfserving pliticians (2) It is well known that the teaching standrds have nose-dived so much even in the so-called elite Universities few hardworking students are coming up in spite of their teachers. (3) Universites are headed by VCs, Directors etc who are appointed on grouns other than academic merit because of their political contacts. Search Committes have become a shameful farce and a cruel joke. VCs do not have the guts to enforce academic discpline either of the students or of the teachers. Libraries have a desert look and teachers are rarely found and students read only news papers. Some teachers make 'careers' out of plitical affiliaion.Academic freedom?
Education in the US, particularly education of the young, is in a terrible mess. What is this man doing here in India?
Opening mind by education is a fantastic thing, but this education system tries to concentrate on the less important areas viz. energy,climate etc.Is the knowledge transfer also include the defence sector,since we as a nation are having maximum expenditure on this area.They simply want to run the 'education shops' in India.Be aware!
Very good initiative. One of the things that is severely lacking in our
educational institutions is infrastructure. I hope these new
universities and partnership projects meet the needs of our scientific
pursuits.
Any collaboration with US, more than China or Pakistan must be
observed through different lenses. India, in the long run would face
the same problem as lower strata of society US is facing today -
unbearable, unimaginable cost of education.
Already private schools in India, especially metros started charging
INR 40000 to INR 120000 even for primary education. Indian government
must have a concrete plan to control education costs and with US
universities setting up campuses and their profit motive will only
drive the rising costs even upwards.
True the challenges of the 21st century are many.But the US-India collaboration in the field of education will go a long way.At present students go to the US for education and research; but if American uni
versities open their campuses in India they will stay in the country.
Just imagine how the computer technology and internet are working won
ders for everybody.We may hope to see the age-old wisdom and the late
st technology working together and its good effects are taken to the
vast majority of the country.
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