Pitroda for opening up education sector to foreign varsities

Mumbai, Oct 12 (UNI) National Knowledge Commission (NKC) chairman Sam Pitroda today opined the country must open up to foreign universities to enable Indian students to pursue higher education through these reputed institutions while staying within the country itself.

Addressing an interactive session hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here today, Dr Pitroda said, ''I don't see any harm in inviting foreign universities to the country.'' While suggesting that the country should open up to foreign universities, Dr Pitroda said it would reduce the burden on the Indian universities. In this regard, he cited the example of the Bombay University which has 600 colleges affiliated to it.

Predicting that private participation in the educational sector is going to increase substantially in the future, Dr Pitroda said at NKC the endeavour was to set up standards for various universities on lines of those in the US.

However, he made it clear that it was not the job of the NKC to execute the same but the work of various ministries. He informed that an apex body, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has been constituted to oversee the implementation of the NKC recommendations.

The NKC acts as an advisory body to the Government of India on matters relating to institutions of knowledge production, knowledge use and knowledge dissemination and bears the mandate of sharpening India's 'knowledge'. The commission aims at promoting excellence in education system and knowledge creation in science and technology, among others.

Currently, the commission has 10 different groups working on various burning issues including primary and secondary education, medical education, and others.

UNI KKD MAZ AK BS1657