British Council MoU with state to promote education

NT Correspondent

The state government and the British Council signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Friday to renew their partnership in the area of education, English language, and arts aimed at creating global opportunities for the youth of Karnataka.

The MoU was signed at Vikasa Soudha in presence of Dr C.N. Ashwath Narayan, Minister of Higher Education, and B.C. Nagesh, Minister of Primary & Secondary Education. G. Kumar Naik, Principal Secretary, Higher Education, GoK and Janaka Pushpanathan, Director British Council South India signed the MoU which lasts for three years.

In his address, Ashwath Narayan said the extended three years MoU would enable to develop the skills of faculty and students from higher education institutions in the State and to expand collaborations through British Council initiatives such as the UK-India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI) and the Going Global Partnerships.

This MoU also paves the way to develop sustainable partnerships in research and innovation between centres of excellence (CoE) in both, the UK and Karnataka, across areas of Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, ed-tech, biosciences, and cyber security, he stated.

Explaining the benefits Narayan explained, “The MoU allows us to build initiatives to improve English and employability skills of young people attending industrial training institutions (ITIs), engineering and management courses. This facilitates student mobility between universities in India and the UK and enhances partnership opportunities between institutes in Karnataka and the UK for internationalisation in the curricula.”