UKIBC Submission on India’s New National Education Policy
By Tara Panjwani
The UK India Business Council took a delegation of UK higher education institution representatives from Universities UK, the University of Birmingham, and the University of Essex to meet Minister of State for Human Resource Development (MHRD), Shri Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre.
In this meeting, we made a formal submission on India’s New Education Policy on behalf of our UK higher education members, grounded in our report, ‘Beyond the Top 200’, published in November 2018.
The UK India Business Council applaud the announcement of a New Education Policy and are grateful for the valuable opportunity to contribute our inputs to help further shape this hugely important mandate.
The announcement of a new National Education Policy is an extremely welcome move. The UK India Business Council believes that if India wants to fulfil its growth potential and deliver employment outcomes, its new education policy should be centred on the four key tenets of excellence, equal access, expansion, and employability. This will develop a resilient system that balances cost, quality, and scale and opens the way for innovation and inclusiveness. Once these basic foundations are in place, India will accelerate its progress to becoming a world-class education hub and a knowledge superpower.
There is an important role that UK Higher Education institutions can play to support this goal, not least in partnering with Indian institutions. UK universities are deeply committed to India and keen to work in collaboration to help India achieve its ambitious objectives.
In 2018, while the new policy was being drafted by the Kasturirangan Committee, the UK India Business Council submitted two reports to the MHRD – ‘India’s New Education Policy’ and ‘Beyond the Top 200 – Effective International Collaboration for Indian Higher Education’. These reports were the result of comprehensive stakeholder consultation.
The attached submission draws on the above mentioned reports to highlight the most relevant and useful recommendations for the new education policy that UK universities believe will enable the Government of India to achieve its goal of enhancing the provision of higher education across the country.
The UK universities that we have consulted are active in India, and have partnerships with both public and private Indian institutions that are spread across research, faculty exchanges, executive training, and providing knowledge transfer on curriculum development, quality assurance, and faculty development. The 6 key recommendations that we have highlighted in this submission include:
- Mutual recognition of qualifications and allowing dual degrees;
- Look beyond the overall ranking to consider specialist courses that fit India’s requirements;
- India-UK collaboration to deliver online learning programmes more widely;
- Embed employability skills and vocational training within higher education;
- Incorporate University Social Responsibility (USR) officially into the policy agenda; and
- Establish a clear roadmap of guidelines for foreign universities to operate in India.
You can read our submission to the Ministry of Human Resource Development on the New Education Policy here. If you would like to find out more about UKIBC’s work supporting higher education institutions between the UK and India, please get in touch with our Higher Education Sector Manager, Tara Panjwani, at tara.panjwani@ukibc.com
