Education providers must assure quality across borders: Shri Kapil Sibal CALLS UPON UNESCO TO FACILITATE DEVELOPING OF ACCREDITATION STANDARDS FOR BENCH-MARKING OF HIGHER EDUCATION
	19:1 IST

The higher education providers delivering cross border education should ensure that the programmes that are delivered across the borders and in their home country are of comparable quality and they also must take into account the cultural and linguistic sensitivities of the receiving countries. Giving the Keynote Address at the Plenary Session of the World Conference on Higher Education, yesterday, at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Shri Kapil Sibal said that while we recognise the tremendous potential of cross border education, we have to be mindful of the risks involved regarding the entry of ‘diploma mills’ and unscrupulous for – profit providers. Shri Sibal pointed out that increasing cross border education has also made it important to have networks of equivalence of degrees and diplomas. Here, he called upon UNESCO to play an important role in helping Member States develop national standards of accreditation for different purposes for bench-marking higher education as also help in improving/maintaining the quality of education so that private players do not become ‘teaching sweat-shops’. The HRD Minister stated that the public institutions cannot keep pace with the rising demand and the importance of private sector in making investments in higher education needs to be realised. The huge gaps in access to higher education between regions and countries need to be narrowed but this is not possible without participation of private sector investments, he said. As regards research, while there is a need for public funded research in basic sciences and frontier areas of technology like Nano Science, Bio-Science, etc. the importance of linkages with the industry, particularly private sector, for funding innovation and technological developments needs to be encouraged, he said, adding there is also a need for regional and global partnership for research. Shri Sibal underlined three historic realities which impact the need for investments in quality higher education around the world. The first being that cross border manufacturing processes and global transactions in services sector have created a demand for higher education not only of “national quality” but also which helps further this process of globalized economy. The second important development has been the technological revolution opening the doors of cross border education particularly in distance mode, with possibilities of virtual universities providing quality education at reasonable costs. The third important development affecting our globe is the awareness and the need for action on global warming and climate change. Education, particularly higher education, must inculcate the values of sustainable development in the minds of our youth, he added. Shri Sibal spoke about the demographic change which is occurring around the world. “In this situation it is also in the interest of the developed countries to come forward and partner with the countries having demographic advantage (which are mostly developing countries) so that different countries of the world can share their strengths to develop the world, and I think education, particularly higher education, is the field to do so. I would, in fact, advocate for a global strategy to meet the requirements of skilled manpower for the world and certainly UNESCO can play an important role in the same,” he said. During the Question-Answer session Shri Sibal highlighted that expansion, inclusion and excellence in higher education which in other terms mean access, equity and quality should go hand in hand. He also said that global mechanisms should be put in place to fund higher education in terms of loans and guarantees to students so that ‘no one is denied the opportunity of higher education for lack of financial resources’. MV/HK