India to become Washington Accord member

In a development that can only augur well for Indian engineers looking for employment overseas, India will become a full-fledged member of the Washington Accord by June this year. This will facilitate global recognition of Indian degrees and improve mobility of students and engineers.

The Washington Accord, signed in 1989, is an international agreement among bodies responsible for accrediting engineering degree programmes. It recognizes the substantial equivalency of programmes accredited by those bodies and recommends that graduates of programmes accredited by any of the signatory bodies be recognized by the other bodies as having met the academic requirements for entry to the practice of engineering.  Some 16 countries are signatories to it.

The Indian government plans to set up the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority (NARA) to improve quality and meet international standards. "After acquiring full status of the Washington Accord, employability of Indian engineers in other countries will go up substantially. This will help our students pursuing technical education," explained Ashok Thakur, Secretary Higher Education.

According to Thakur, India has been a provisional member of the Washington Accord since 2007 and is confident to get the full-fledged status by June when a meeting of the body is due to take place. Two members have been deputed by the Washington Accord to help India align its accreditation norms with the best international practices.

QS Global 200 Business Schools Report 2012: IIMs feature in Asia Pacific top 10 list

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have reason to cheer. The three IIMs at Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Calcutta have been listed among the top 10 in the Asia Pacific region in the recently released QS Global 200 Business Schools Report 2012. IIM-Ahmedabad is ranked second, IIM-Bangalore's rank is fifth and IIM-Calcutta is ranked eighth.

Indian School of Business has been ranked seventh, S P Jain Institute of Management and Research is at 16 and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade at 21.

INSEAD, Singapore is number one in the region for the third consecutive year. Melbourne  Business School (University of Melbourne, Australia), NUS Business School, (National University of Singapore) and University of New South Wales were some of the other institutes that featured among the top 10 in the region.

Throughout the QS Global 200 Business Schools Report, one theme in particular stands out: Indian business schools are fast gaining popularity among MBA employers. In almost all specialisation ratings, Indian schools have climbed considerably when compared to last year. This is even the case for international management, as while Indian business schools feature lower down the rating than they do in other specializations, they are still climbing and showing promise in developing a greater international outlook among their MBA graduates.