World Bank's $250 M for India's tech education

Friday, 15 November 2002, 20:30 IST
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WASHINGTON: The World Bank has approved a credit of $250 million to help India boost the quality of its emerging young technicians and engineers. The International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's concessionary lending arm, approved the amount. The Technical/Engineering Quality Improvement Programme, approved by the World Bank Thursday, will help India supply its economy with the level of professional excellence needed to foster greater competitiveness and productivity. The project will be implemented in the states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh under the coordination of the Department of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE), the ministry of human resource development and the Indian government. The project is designed to support engineering colleges, technical universities and polytechnics in achieving their own visions of academic excellence. Institutions will be selected to participate in the project on a competitive basis depending on their capabilities and long-term planning for quality improvement, said a World Bank press release. All selected institutions will be required to network with others and to provide services to the local community. It will also encourage granting of greater freedom to the institutions for their own governance and management of finances. "There is an urgent need to upgrade the quality of technical and engineering education in India to provide students with a virtuous cycle of opportunities," said Shashi Shrivastava, senior education specialist with the World Bank. "In this cycle, good training leads to better jobs, better jobs lead to increased productivity and increased productivity leads to accelerated growth of the Indian economy which, in turn, impacts poverty reduction," she said. About 20 well-performing engineering education institutions will be selected as the lead institutions, and a further 60 to 80 institutions will be networked by the project. This will impact over 100,000 students, approximately 10 percent of the total number of students enrolled for engineering degrees in India. A major share of the funding will be utilised for quality-enhancing activities, such as the introduction of teaching and research programmes in cutting edge technologies, and the modernisation of existing programmes and facilities. Some of the funding will be utilised for faculty training, extension services and development of new facilities, depending on the long-term plan presented by each of the selected institutions. The IDA credit has a 35-year maturity with a 10-year grace period and a 0.75 percent service charge.
Source: IANS