US seeks student exchange programmes for skill development

The United States today stressed on jointly working towards increasing skills of students to face future challenges and said this can be done through exchange programmes and partnerships between India and the US.
"We need to make sure that next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs have the skills and training," US Secretary of State John Kerry said at the India-US Higher Education Dialogue here.
Those who work in government and private sectors need to join together in order to focus and meet the challenges in education, he said.
HRD Minister M M Pallam Raju and Kerry co-chaired the India-US Higher Education Dialogue.

During the dialogue, both sides took up Research and Innovation Partnership under Singh-Obama Knowledge Initiative, Institutional Partnership and Skill Development as well as promotion of community colleges in India and technology enabled education including massive open online courses.
In continuation of the educational partnership between the two nations, the US State Department announced eight institutional partnership projects for the second round of Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative awards.

This initiative strengthens collaboration and builds partnerships between American and Indian institutions of higher education in priority fields, US officials said.
Each project will receive an award of approximately USD 250,000 that can be utilised over a three year period, with the objectives of cultivating educational reform, fostering economic growth, generating shared knowledge to address global challenges, and developing junior faculty at Indian and American institutions of higher learning.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama announced the Obama-Singh Initiative in November 2009 as an affirmation of their commitment to building an enhanced India-US partnership in education.
Each government pledged USD 5 million for this endeavour, for a total of USD 10 million.