Indo-Scottish educational cooperation explored

Kolkata, Feb 22 (UNI) Representatives of ten leading Scottish colleges have planned to form a consortia with their Indian counterparts for mutual benefit.

The representatives, on a week-long tour of India to explore the joint venture opportunities in education, announced their decision to form the consortia following several rounds of fruitful dialogues with the representatives of a number of well known Indian educational institutions.

Leader of the 18-member Scottish Educational delegation Aileen McKechnie informed newsmen that during their four-day visit to New Delhi and Mumbai since last week they had met the Board members of a number of renowned institutes like the Indian Institute of Business Management, Indian Institute of Engineering and the Pusa Institute of Technology to explore the opportunity of joining hands for exchange of educational programmes.

" In Kolkata too during our next two-day visit we are likely to call on the Directors of Indian Institute of Social and Business Managemet(IISWBM), WEBEL Toons and the Indian Institute for Technical Education at Salt Lake and several others, " Ms McKechnie said after an interactive session with members of the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce(BNCCI) here.

Asked about the possibility of forming joint venture in non- technical sectors, particularly in the areas of Food processing, Hospitality and Business Adminisatration besides in several vocational courses, members of the Scottish delegation expressed common interests in these fields.

They said they were also looking into the possibilities and scopes in these emerging areas.

Claiming that the overall cost of education and boarding in Scotland was much lower than most of the other European countries or the developed nations, senior delegation member Graham Keith said on an average the annual expenditure of each overseas student varied between 4,500 and 5,000 pounds.

However, during the vacation or at the weekend the students could earn a portion of their expenses by taking up temporary jobs, quite common among the foreign students, he pointed out.

He said so far about 20 per cent of a total of 4716 foreign students studying in 43 Scottish colleges and universities were of Indian origin.

Mr Keith claimed that the number was fast increasing in the wake of a considerable job opportunities.

In case of the proposed consortia the number of would be doubled within the next couple of years, he asserted.

Among the leading educational instutions and colleges of Scotland being represented were Adam Smith College,Central College of Commerce, Dumfries and Galloway College, Edinburg's Telford College, Forth Vallety College, North Glasgow College and Perth College.

UNI