The Hindu Business Line : India, UK schools work out joint education initiative

Following a joint declaration on education by the Prime Ministers of India and UK in September last year, representatives of schools of the two countries attended a contact seminar organised in the Capital recently to work out a broad project outline for a joint curriculum initiative.

To take the initiative forward, 11 clusters of schools each from India and the UK would receive a grant of £ 25,000 for a period of three years to be spent on teaching resources, communication costs and equipment costs for the purpose.

Seminar goals

The purpose of the contact seminar was to let representatives understand the differences and similarities in the educational systems of the two countries.

Mr C.M. Sharma of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Chandigarh, one of the participant schools, said, "Through the interaction, we were surprised to find the that teachers in schools in UK come two hours before class time and prepare for the classes they have to take. We have planned to jointly work on culture & arts and games & sports fields with our partner schools in the UK."

The schools will be required to submit a completed project plan by the first week of November.

Following the approval of the project plan, funds will be released.

While seven of the clusters will be supported by funding from the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), the other four will be sponsored by Shell, GlaxoSmithKline, British Aerospace and British Petroleum.

The grant of £ 10 million, announced by the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, last year, would be used to fund the school division, along with the `Higher Education' and `Professional and Technical Skills' divisions. The grant aims to forge strategic partnerships in education and facilitate design and development of joint curriculum projects.

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