Obama announces India-US education summit

NEW DELHI - Taking ties in the field of education to the next level, India and US will hold their first education summit next year.

According to government officials, the summit-level talks involving top leaders from the two countries, are also expected to include leading universities from both countries.

“Building on our successful efforts to expand educational exchanges, including our Singh Obama Knowledge Initiative, we’ll convene a summit to forge new collaborations in higher education. And we are announcing two initiatives to deliver progress to our people,” US President Barack Obama announced during his joint press conference with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday.

Similar conferences have been held in past by various groups including the Indo-US education summit held in July end this year in Mumbai.

“Because knowledge is the currency of the 21st century, well increase exchanges between our students, colleges and universities, which are among the best in the world,” Obama said later addressing MPs from both houses of parliament.

Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal was present at the meeting at Hyderabad House where the summit was finalised.

The minister has been working hard to invite American universities to India, with Yale being the latest one to forge ties with Indian Instittue of Technology-Kanpur and Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode.

According to HRD ministry officials, may more tie ups may come ahead in near future as many heads of universities accompanying Obama have shown interest in India.

The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Cornell University and senior representatives of Boston University, Arizona State University and Rutgers University are a part of Obama’s delegation.