SHILLONG: North-Eastern Hill University may soon enter into partnership with French universities for higher education.
Bertrand de Hartingh, counsellor for Cooperation and Cultural Affairs and country director of Institut Français in New Delhi, along with a team of six officials visited NEHU on Friday morning.
The alumnus of ENS Ulm — the alma mater of Nobel laureates like Jean Paul Sartre — spoke at length on how Indian students can benefit from Indo-French partnership.
He spoke of France’s commitment to India and focus on education, research and innovation. “It’s no better place for us than NEHU to underline that,” he told the gathering comprising Vice-Chancellor SK Srivastava and Pro-Vice-Chancellor Henry Lamin, among others.
“We have too few Indian students in France. Too few academic and scientific partnerships but we are trying hard to change the landscape,” said Hartingh, adding, “Last year, 5,164 Indian students… got to go to France, which is a tiny number but twice the figure three years ago.”
The high-ranked official said the country is targeting over 10,000 Indian students by 2020. He pointed out that France has around 30,000 students from China.
Hartingh listed six main topics of importance, which are IT and Mathematics, Transformation of natural products, which include chemistry, aerospace and research, agriculture, agro business food processing, renewable energy and urban planning.
“We do not look at North East as a remote corner of India. What we would like to develop now is your own knowledge, your student’s own knowledge of what France and India could achieve together,” Dr. Hartingh said.
He further informed of a calendar of events lined up and of several agreements signed between India and France during the French President’s visit to the country recently.
An MoU on ‘mutual recognition of educational qualifications’ was signed between India and France, in the first high-level India-France Knowledge Summit 2018.
Apart from MoU on Mutual Recognition of Academic Qualifications between India and France, 15 MoUs between various institutions of India and France in the areas of Higher Education, Research, Innovation, Faculty exchange, Scientific Cooperation were exchanged.
