New Delhi
December 7, 2005 

Fifteen leading American Universities including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and the Universities of Massachusetts, Washington, Texas, Illionois and University of California at Los Angeles, joined hands with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and AMRITA Vishwa Vidyapeetham to enhance higher education and research in India. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed, here today.

The US signatories in this MOU will depute their faculty to teach and lead research programmes that will be accessible to a wide cross-section of colleges and universities in India via AMRITA’s E-Learning facility and ISRO’s Edusat. The programme will focus initially on engineering and computer science, information and communication technologies, but courses will also include materials science, biotechnology and bioinformatics, nanotechnology, medical sciences and management sciences.

Speaking on the occasion, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Prof. V.S. Ramamurthy said the biggest challenge in education sector is good quality education which will prepare scientists for tomorrow. He said, producing good quality students and properly trained teachers is the need of the hour and should be made a part of the long term strategy. For this, Prof. Ramamurthy said, uniformity of training across the world is a must and the signing of today’s MOU is a step forward in that direction.