Senior leaders from 14 US and Maharashtra Universities met the Governor of Maharashtra, Ramesh Bais, at Raj Bhavan to discuss the possibility of facilitating semester exchange, internship programmes, research, curriculum development, online learning, and faculty and student exchanges.
US Consul General Mike Hankey presented the US government’s perspective on collaborative priorities to guide potential programmes between American and Indian institutions.
The roundtable was attended by Vikas Chandra Rastogi, principal secretary, Higher and Technical Education, Government of Maharashtra; Sita Raiter, deputy cultural attache, US Consulate General in Mumbai, Jason Czyz, co-president, Institute of International Education (IIE) and Vivek Mansukhani, director IIE India office among others.
Stating that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, launched by India and being implemented in Maharashtra from the forthcoming academic session, seeks to promote the internationalisation of higher education, Governor Bais added NEP provided for credit recognition and credit transfer, the establishment of campuses of Indian universities in other countries and opening of campuses by foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India.
Noting that NEP 2020 aims to improve the Gross Enrollment Education from the present 26 per cent to 50 per cent by 2035, the Governor said considering the vast geography and the profile of the people of Maharashtra, distance and open learning will be the best option to reach out to the majority of students. He said that most of India’s youth would be happy to receive skilling, skill upgradation and re-skilling support from the universities in the US. He further remarked that skilling would be an important area where India would welcome collaboration with universities in the US.
According to the Governor, India has a top educational system. He said the country was a repository of the ancient knowledge of the Vedas, Upanishads, Yogas, Jurisprudence and many other subjects. The governor said the university-level collaboration would help US universities learn about India’s work in preventive healthcare, yoga, ayurveda, astrology, astronomy, vedic mathematics etc.
Speaking on the occasion, US Consul General Mike Hankey said the US education system offered several advantages to the students, including professional workspace experience. He said 2.7 lakh Indian students were already pursuing higher education in various universities in the United States and that Mumbai (US consulate) issued 90,000 student visas alone. Consul General Hankey said he would be happy to see more US students coming to Maharashtra.
