Monday, January 24 2005 14:10 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Center would "not hesitate" to change policy if it helped educational institutes in their effort to expand abroad, Union Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh said today (Jan 24, 2005).

Inaugurating a symposium on 'Globalisation of Technical Education' organised by ASSOCHAM in New Delhi, Singh said that his Ministry was "committed" to helping institutes, which were interested to foray into foreign shores.

"We will not hesitate to change policy if they are not in tune with the requirements," he said.

He said that many established norms of economic and social patterns were changing in the era of globalisation and India would have to "grab" available opportunities if it was to succeed in the new scenario.

Singh said that his Ministry was bringing about "course correction" in education but was worried about diminishing interest for science stream among students.

"We are working on ways to arrest this disturbing trend," he added.

Singh said that University Grants Commission was making efforts to promote higher education abroad while Government was in the process of introducing an "academic framework."

On entry of foreign institutes into Indian educational field, he said that the Government was waiting for the recently appointed C N R Rao committee to provide a roadmap in this regard. Its report is likely to be submitted by mid-April.

Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, who was also present on the occasion, stressed on the need for a regulatory framework to prevent the entry of "B and C-grade foreign universities."

Sibal said that it was vital to have quality educational institutes and called upon the industry to partner the Government in establishing them.

"We have a huge number of graduates, but a small quantity resource base," he said, calling for the establishment of quality institutes "which fit into the economic situation".

"There is a need to marry educational institutes, industry and Government initiatives. The industry must tell us in which areas it will grow and what it needs," he said.

Lamenting the extremely low amount spent by the industry on research and development efforts, Sibal said that this was only 30 per cent in India as compared to 60 per cent in developed countries.

"We just have one Indian Institute of Science for 570 million youth below the age of 25, which is twice the population of the United States," he pointed out.

Sibal said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had recently announced that a dozen more such institutes would come up "and we are on the way to set them up."