India, Afghanistan sign HRD agreement

The Union Cabinet led by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on December 17 gave its approval to a preliminary agreement between India and Afghanistan on cooperation in the field of human resource development. The deal will allow students and faculty of educational institutions in Afghanistan to register and use the SWAYAM courses. SWAYAM is a programme initiated by Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy – access, equity and quality – with active implementation of  digital technology.

The agreement will allow uploading on SWAYAM, the courses developed in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the required training to students and faculty from Afghanistan will be imparted by MHRD, Government of India. Through the partnership, Government of India will provide access and share the technology of other leading ICT initiatives in education such as National Digital Library of India (NDLI), Virtual Labs, Spoken Tutorials. The agreement is also proposed to establish joint master degree programmes between Indian and Afghanistan universities and institutions.

MHRD will assist the Ministry of Higher Education, Afghanistan in the areas of curriculum development and capacity development of teaching staff. Both the countries have agreed to sign an agreement on mutual recognition of academic qualifications. This is expected to promote student mobility under Study in India program, by attracting more foreign students and doubling India’s market share of education exports. While there were more than 165,000 Indian students enrolled in colleges abroad, there were over 45,000 foreign students enrolled in India during 2015-16.