Harmonisation of academic standards needed for SAARC cooperation

Kolkata, Feb 24 (IANS) Calling upon India to play a major role in enhancing educational cooperation among SAARC countries, stakeholders Tuesday advocated harmonisation of academic standards for better collaboration.

Participating in an event on "awareness of educational facilities and cultural heritage of SAARC", diplomats and experts also expressed concern over illiteracy continuing to be a major issue for the South Asian nations.

"Do we have a standard syllabus? Can a student studying in an Indian university switch over to another university in Sri Lanka and still gets his degree? Therefore the need is to go for harmonisation of academic standard of universities across the SAARC countries," said West Bengal higher education Principal Secretary Vivek Kumar.

Delivering the keynote lecture, Governor K.N. Tripathi called for accelerating students and faculty exchange among the SAARC member countries.

"The information of facilities for higher education, employment potential and facilities for research needs to be disseminated in a better way. All the stakeholders and analysts need to be updated about the facilities available within the SAARC countries. Exchange programmes of faculty and students need to be accelerated," said Tripathi.

Abhijit Sen, Sri Lanka's honorary consul, called upon India to play a major role in facilitating educational cooperation.

"Around one-third of total foreign students in India are members of the SAARC. It is a kind of one way traffic which needs to be changed for the collective development. India being the leader in the field of education, the onus is upon her to create more cooperation," said Sen.

"While Indian universities offer three year undergraduate degree courses, the other SAARC members have four years. Therefore there is an need to standardize the academic structure for better cooperation," added Sen.

His views were echoed by Phuntsho Dukpa, Bhutan deputy consul here.

"Bhutan's education system is interlinked with India as almost all our students come to India for higher education. But it is time for Bhutan to offer itself to others. We are steadily having exchange programmes with students from India and Maldives," said Dukpa.