Based on USA’s experience of community colleges, India on Tuesday took the initiative to develop such colleges across the country. Talking to media after the India-US Higher Education Dialogue, HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju said the idea is to borrow the concept and not replicate what is happening there in the US as the economic condition of the two nations are different.
“It is a relevant model. Over 100 years, the US has fine tuned that model. It has become much more than impacting skills. It will work closely with industry and business from the area to develop skill sets that are required from the local areas,” Raju said about the skill development through community colleges.
Faced with the task of skill development of 500 million youth, Raju said that India and US have great potential to expand co-operation in Higher Education Sector. It includes promoting institution to institution ties; deepening co-operation in R&D; encouraging faculty exchanges; and development of teachers. The blueprint also includes promoting a two-way student exchange, skill development and give thrust to on-line education such as Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOCs).
Meanwhile, the US stressed on jointly working towards increasing skills of students to face future challenges and said this can be done through exchange programmes and partnerships between India and the US. “We need to make sure that next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs have the skills and training. Those who work in the Government and private sectors need to join together in order to focus and meet the challenges in education,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said. Raju and Kerry co-chaired the India-US Higher Education Dialogue.
Four agreements were signed between IIT-Delhi and University of Nebraska on the Cyber Systems, IIT-Bombay and edX on Massive Open Online Courses, AICTE and American Association of Community Colleges, and ITM group and Montgomery Colleges.