Patna

Expanding Indo-British partnership in education sector for mutual benefits, as many as 25,000 students from the United Kingdom will come to India to study in the Indian universities over the next five year, a senior British High Commission official said today.

The British Council has devised a project called – Generation UK – under which 25,000 students from the UK will come over to India over the next five years for studies, Andrew Soper, Minister Counsellor in the British High Commission at New Delhi, told reporters here.

Asked as to how the British students will benefit by studying in Indian academic institutions when they have world class facilities back home, he said, there are a number of good educational institutions in India, too which can help the students from his country to excel in their chosen field.

Stating that the UK and India have entered into a well established, broad ranging and expanding partnership in education sector over the years, Soper said Prime Minister David Cameron and ministers in his government have visited India with a specific goal to explore further opportunity to broaden partnership in education sector.

“Education remains a key plank of bilateral relations between India and the UK,” he said.

Soper, who had taught social sciences at Woodstock school in Mussoorie in early 1980s before joining diplomatic service, also sought to woo the Indian students to come over to the UK for education and research in order to boost their career prospects.

Similarly, the bilateral partnership between the two countries provides an opportunity to the students from India to undertake education and research in the UK which has four of top six universities of the world and 30 of top 200 academic institutions, he said.

On the UK’s partnership with the Bihar government, the British Council (East India) Director Sujata Sen said the UK’s Department of International Development (DFID) runs project to teach English language to school teachers in Bihar.

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