India and the United Kingdom on Thursday (21 July) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on mutual recognition of academic qualifications to facilitate student mobility and collaboration between higher educational institutions of both countries.
The MoU was signed by India's higher education secretary K Sanjay Murthy and UK's permanent secretary for department of International trade James Bowler.
"In May 2021, during the virtual summit between the prime ministers of India and UK, a comprehensive roadmap to 2030 was adopted for an enhanced bilateral cooperation between the two countries. Both sides also agreed to a new Enhanced Trade Partnership. Education forms an important pillar of this roadmap," the Ministry of Education said in a release.
"In light of India’s National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020), the two sides agreed to expand educational by agreeing to a mutual recognition of academic qualifications," the ministry said.
The ministry added that the signing of this MoU would enable smoother student mobility between the two countries and help in developing stronger institutional collaboration and widen the scope of academic and research collaboration between the Higher Education Institutions of both countries.
According to the ministry, the Government of India is taking several steps to allow greater international collaboration with countries abroad to facilitate Internationalisation of education, which is one of the key areas of focus under the NEP 2020.