Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Mr. Kapil Sibal meets US Education Secretary: US acknowledges India's senior secondary level achievements 

Washington, DC
October 30, 2009
(Press Information Bureau)

The Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Shri Kapil Sibal, met with the US Secretary for Education, Arne Duncan in Washington yesterday. The US side expressed concern about the outcomes at their school level, which in turn affects the enrolment in higher education. The quality of India's senior secondary level achievements was acknowledged by the American side. 

During the interaction, Shri Sibal said the nature of cooperation between the two countries in the future would be based on partnerships, as distinct from the hand-holding of the earlier days, as India has developed into an important economy and had abundance of high quality human resources. Secretary Duncan and Shri Sibal discussed the initiatives underway in India in higher education. The HRD Minister described the concept of "innovation universities" proposed to be established in India and the highly useful suggestions and encouraging responses received from the leading US universities visited by the Indian delegation. 

The HRD Minister spoke about the advantages of cooperation in higher education and research between the two countries and how such cooperation would have to go beyond the scope of cooperation in the decade of the fifties and the sixties when leading US universties came together to establish the IIT at Kanpur. Secretary Duncan welcomed Indian initiatives and mentioned that the US Under Secretary of Education was to visit India in November when the issues of bilateral cooperation including the proposal for a US-India Education Council could be discussed further. 

The Indian delegation, headed by Shri Sibal, later participated in a meeting hosted by the US-India Business Council on the subject of investment and collaboration opportunities in higher education in India. This was followed by meetings with the President of Duke University, Dr. Richard H. Brodhead and later with the President of Georgetown University, Dr. John. J. DeGioia and a speech in the University on ‘Expansion of India’s Education Infrastructure and Opportunities for Foreign Universities.’ Shri Sibal, during the visit has already met with the Presidents of Harvard University, Yale University, Boston University, New York Academy of Sciences and the MIT.