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.

US-India Higher Education Summit 2011

THE big education event of the year is finally here.

India’s Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal is on his way to the US-India Higher Education Summit to be held in Washington, DC on Thursday, October 13, 2011. The stage is set for positive developments in higher education collaboration and exchange between India and the United States.

The summit will begin with opening statements by Kapil Sibal and the Secretary of State of the US, Hillary Clinton. The summit will be jointly hosted by the government of India and the United States government and attended by higher education leaders and government officials from the US and India, as well as private sector leaders.

On the cards is a discussion on US-India Higher Education Cooperation, co-chaired by senior officials from the US and Indian governments. Prominent higher education and thought leaders will speak at a plenary session and in breakout sessions on topics crucial to expanding and strengthening higher education collaboration between our two countries.

Topics on the table include joint degrees, research partnerships, accreditation and quality assurance. In addition, the summit will highlight the importance of education as a pillar of the US-India Strategic Dialogue and set forth goals for deepening this aspect of our bilateral relationship in cooperation with the many excellent institutions of higher education in both countries.

For more news on the summit, watch this space.