India to set up 14 Innovation Universities with US tie ups

Kapil Sibal

NEW YORK: India is setting up 14 “innovation universities” in the country, for which it is actively seeking to forge alliances with top American universities to partner with India in their architecture, revealed India’s Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal. The minister, who is on a week-long visit to the US in this endeavor, spoke to the media at the Indian Consulate in New York just before delivering the Consulate’s first ‘Distinguished Persons Lecture Series’ on Oct 25.

The 20-member delegation, which includes a number of Indian academicians, organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry led by Sibal is holding meetings at Harvard University, MIT, Boston University, Yale, George Washington University and also with the US Education Secretary.
The purpose of the visit was to explore possibilities of collaboration of various kinds with American educational institutions, the minister said. “We are starting a dialogue with them to know what is it that they would like to do with us in the nature of collaboration and to what extent they would like to partner with us,” he said. “(But) I can’t say whether that dialogue will lead to any substantial results — I hope it does – we will try to convince them of the educational reforms we are bringing in and the first reform is to allow foreign education providers to come into India.”
Further on that, Sibal said the general policy framework would be for foreign education providers to come in a manner seen in other countries. “Our expectation is that as and when they come to India they will understand the sensitivities in India and I’m sure we have enough student community in India for them to have the kind of surpluses they need to put back into the system.”
“This is in the context where we are intending to reform the Indian education sector. New legislations in this regard, hopefully, are on the anvil and this is on account of the fact that the education system in India must expand exponentially; and this expansion process involves getting every child to school. We have already passed Right to Education Bill — a historic legislation as you know,” he said.
Sibal said that India was moving forward with the ‘Madhyamic Shikshya Abhiyan’ (Secondary School Movement) where it hopes to ensure that all children go to school and get higher secondary education. “What that will do for India is help us have a critical mass of people to move into the higher education system and increase our GER (Gross Enrolment Rate) from 12.4 at present to somewhere around 30, by 2020,” he explained.
It was to cater to the critical mass of people who will thus be vying for higher education, that India was trying to forge alliances with American educational institutions, he added. “America is a great example of education, especially education at the graduate level, which without any doubts meets the standards of excellence that no other higher education system does,” he said.
Sibal also noted that the presence of Indians holding prominent positions in most American universities makes it important to start a dialogue with those institutions to forge alliances of a permanent nature.
Minister on the defensive
This past month, India’s Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has been embroiled in controversies over his suggestions for changing the eligibility criteria for IIT entrance examinations. With lack of support from various quarters including from some of the constituents of the ruling UPA, Sibal has had to backtrack on some of his proposals, which was perhaps the reason why he was aggressively defensive when questioned on the subject at a press conference.
Cutting off reporters somewhat rudely, he refused to acknowledge that there was any controversy over the issue at all. “There is no controversy … its all over… there was an issue and that has been resolved,” he said in response to a question.
The minister had suggested that the cut off percentage for class XII students wanting to appear for the IIT JEE entrance should be raised from 60% to 80-85%, which met with opposition from some of the political parties. However, he told reporters here that the cut off percent for qualifying for the IIT JEE was 60% and that there was no controversy there whatsoever.
He also took offense to another reporter’s query on how he expected to carry on the reform process in the education sector when he seems to be stymied with opposition from political parties. “It bothers me when such stories are spread,” he said. “Bring me proof that anyone from any Party is opposing me then I will answer your question.”
To another journalist who asked what he expects from his delegation’s meetings with top American universities during his week-long visit, he said, “We are just starting a dialogue… can’t say if the dialogue will lead to substantial results. I hope something comes of it. These are just exploratory meetings.”
In the same vein he told another reporter he should ask the American universities what they are looking for in India and not him. 
To a reporter’s hypothetical question if the minister had any advice for President Obama on educational reform, since the President was also talking about reforming the system in the US, the minister said, “Certainly we will give no advice at the instance of a journalist.”
About commercialization of universities in India with regard to those that charge huge capitation fee, the minister said, “Yes, there are some universities that are charging capitation fee; we are bringing in a law – a malpractices law — the law is not yet passed, so I can’t explain it to you.”

SRIREKHA  N. CHAKRAVARTY