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Hindustan Times, By David Willett: Last year in Delhi, Prime Ministers David Cameron and Manmohan Singh had announced that both governments would help fund the UK India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI). Since then, we have carried out wide consultation in Britain and India leading to the recent launch of this major collaboration.UKIERI is already a success. In its first five years, UKIERI created some 500 new partnerships between schools, colleges, universities and research institutions in our countries. UKIERI has covered a huge range of areas that range from strengthening postgraduate research in areas as diverse as sustainable construction materials, renewable energy to mobile healthcare and internationalising vocational training. As of this week, UKIERI is inviting proposals for collaborations in key areas of building a new generation of education leaders, innovation, skills development and student mobility. During my visits to India, I have been fascinated to learn about Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal’s ambition to build India’s “human infrastructure”. I was truly staggered when I first heard that to achieve a 30% gross enrolment rate in higher education, India would have to create 40 million new university places, and that the prime minister has set a target of 500 million people to be trained in vocational skills over the next 12 years. Britain has a clear interest in India’s making this ambition a reality. As major investors in one another’s economies and growing trade partners, strong sustained growth in India will have a positive effect on Britain’s own growth. But our interest goes beyond GDP figures. Last year, Cameron set out his vision for a new relationship with India that goes “stronger, wider, deeper”. I can think of no other area of our collaboration that has such unlimited potential to go stronger, wider, and deeper than education. Last year, Sibal had written in a publication that “the innovative ideas and good practices of the UK have great significance for India as we enter a new era of reforms in the education sector”. I, of course, agree with him. One innovating British institution is the Open University, which is actively developing plans to offer online teacher training in India. But I have also seen how much Britain can
learn from India and its innovative approaches. Which is one reason why I am determined that the new phase of UKIERI will include opportunities for more British students and researchers to spend time in India.Back to the class - Hindustan Times
