Cementing its ties with the US in the education sector, India will be ready with an Indo-US education council by November this year.

Both the countries plan to announce the setting up of a joint educational council during US president Barack Obama’s visit to India in November this year. “We will try that by the time US president visits India the joint education council is already set up. With this broad agreement between both the countries we will move forward,” said Kapil Sibal, minister of human resource development (HRD).

On his US visit, the HRD minister on Wednesday said that the Indo-US education council will work for furthering bilateral relations in education.

Sibal also said that the United States is impressed with the education reforms taking place here and they are keen to collaborate across the board with the focus on research and skill development. “They want to collaborate with us even at the school level through various foreign exchange programmes,” he added.

Sibal was part of the delegation for Indo-US strategic dialogue and during his visit he visited Stanford University, which he said showed great interest in collaborating with the Indian institutes. “I will visit there in February to discuss further on the collaboration.”  He added that the US institutions are just waiting for the parliament’s approval to Foreign Education Provider's Bill, which will allow them to start working here. Adding, " But before they come we will have to create an environment here, we will have to understand its importance because if we will not allow these foreign institutions to come we will lose a lot.”

Sibal emphasized that there will not just be setting up of foreign institutions in India but various other collaboration will also be done. He also said that ideas like giving recognition to each other's degrees to allow mobility and setting up of innovation universities in India with the help of foreign expertise were also discussed.