Indo-US higher education dialogue on June 25
Aiming to boost the partnership in higher education sector, HRD Minister M M Pallam Raju and visiting US Secretary of State John F Kerry will co-chair India-US Higher Education Dialogue here on June 25.

During the dialogue, the two sides will take 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, an HRD Ministry release said here.

IIT, Bombay, is entering into an MoU with edx--a US based open online course platform. The intended outcome also includes two-way students'' mobility from India to the US and vice-versa.

India and the US will also take up linkage between the industry and the academia and faculty development. They are also expected to take up issues like post-doctoral research and co-operation in training for school teachers.

Raju had visited the US last month for forging linkages and collaborations in the field of higher education.

The educational relations between India and the US have intensified after the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the US in 2009 and reciprocal visit of President Barack Obama to India in 2010.

The first India-US Higher Education summit was convened in Washington DC in October, 2011. During the dialogue, major announcements are expected.

This includes Second Round of Singh-Obama Knowledge Initiative Awards which have 8 joint research programmes under it, first batch of 126 Raman Fellows, who are being sponsored by UGC to take up post-doctoral research in US institutions and “Connect India” Programme for US students to come to India.