Speeches and Remarks
OFFICIAL TEXT
Remarks of U.S. Consul General Jennifer McIntyre at VIT and ABET Certificate Program
February 22, 2012
As Prepared Text
Good afternoon Chancellor G. Viswanathan, representatives of partner universities, and ladies and gentlemen. It’s a pleasure to be here today.
One of the great challenges facing our two countries, is how to educate – and educate well – our growing youth population. India has 12 million Indians enrolled in universities and colleges today.
While these numbers are impressive, it is also worth noting that there are estimated to be half a billion Indians under the age of 25.
Expanding quality educational opportunities is a challenge our countries and institutions are addressing together. As part of the U.S.-India strategic dialogue, the State Department hosted last October the first Higher Education Summit in Washington, D.C., which was chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Indian Education Minister Kapil Sibal.
In Secretary Clinton’s remarks, she highlighted educational collaboration as a driving force in our strategic dialogue, and stressed the role of the private sector, and individuals and institutions outside of government, in building up this partnership in education, and to help our educational institutions catalyze the workforce that will be needed in the 21st century in both of our countries.
At the local level, the Consulate supports these educational partnership goals in a variety of ways.
At the same time as the Summit, the Consulate supported a visit to Chennai by our Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, Suresh Kumar led the first education trade mission to India.
This mission, organized in partnership with the U.S.-India Educational Foundation (USIEF), and our local Commercial Service Office included representatives from 21 U.S. institutions of higher education, who met with over 100 educational partners, businesses and students to find opportunities to collaborate and exchange.
Our USIEF Chennai office, which is collocated with the Consulate, helps facilitate multiple fairs for U.S. universities in India each year, and last year they supported 5 events featuring 91 U.S. college and universities in Chennai and South India.
Under our EducationUSA program, our USIEF advisors also offers students - and their parents – comprehensive information and counseling services on higher education in the U.S. right from our Consulate library in central Chennai.
I highly recommend that anyone considering study in the U.S. stop by the Consulate and talk with our USIEF counselor or visit our webpage.
Promoting research and scholarship in education has long been a hallmark of the U.S.-India partnership.
Our two governments have been partnering for more than 60 years in the Fulbright program, administered by USIEF and since 2008, on Fulbright-Nehru scholarships, which provide U.S. and Indian participants the opportunity to study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
Today, India has the largest Fulbright scholar exchange program of any of our partner countries in the world, with more than 17,000 fellowships and other grants awarded to Indians and Americans since it began.
Our USIEF office also oversees the new Obama-Singh initiative, launched during the President Singh’s visit to the U.S. in November 2009.
This $10-million-dollar program – co-funded equally by the Governments of India and the United States, is targeted for innovative ideas at the institutional level, and institutions can propose projects for grants to advance scholarship and teaching, and promote reliable, long-term communication between partner educational institutions.
The first set of proposals in this exciting joint initiative are currently in the final selection process with awards expected later this spring.
Over the next decade, we expect to see many fruitful outcomes from these partnerships, and to help identify multiple paths together to educational excellence.
I encourage interested institutions to check the USIEF website to find out the schedule for next year’s call for Obama-Singh knowledge initiative proposals.
I’m really pleased to be here today to mark the partnership between VIT and our American accrediting body ABET a partnership that also captures the intent of the Higher Education Dialogue between our countries to expand our educational links not only the government but also the private and institutional level.
I congratulate VIT University on its recent creation of the USA Institute for Advanced Studies, in collaboration with its major U.S. university and industry partners.
And today, I’m pleased to mark another milestone for VIT with its accreditation by ABET, the Accrediting Board of Engineering and Technology.
ABET is a U.S. nonprofit, non-governmental organization, located in the city of my birth of Baltimore, Maryland. that accredits college and university programs in the disciplines of applied science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology.
ABET has accredited over 3,100 programs at more than 660 colleges and universities in 23 countries, on the basis of specific criteria established for degree programs in various disciplines.
The Mechanical and Civil Engineering program at VIT was one of those programs, and in 2009, received accreditation from the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET.
This academic year, the Electronics and Communication Engineering and the Computer Science and Engineering programs at VIT also received ABET accreditation.
It is my great pleasure to congratulate the faculty, students, and the academic administrators of VIT for seeking and gaining ABET accreditation for these programs.
Thank You.