2 Top Indian Institutes Become Partners With Yale in Leadership Training

Yale University announced last month that it would form a partnership with two of India’s top management and engineering institutes to train Indian university leaders on best practices in academic administration and institutional management in the United States.

The project is to be financed with $1-million from the Indian government. Yale said it was not contributing money to the effort except for paying the overhead costs for its administrators and faculty members to be involved.

The two partners are the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, in the north, and the Indian Institute of Management in Kozhikode, in the south.

The project is part of a broader push by India’s government to modernize its higher-education system, which is unable to meet the country’s growing educational demands. Kapil Sibal, the minister in charge of higher education, has pushed aggressively to reform the system, partly through pursuing partnerships with foreign institutions.

Sanjay Dhande, director of the institute in Kanpur, said in a written statement that as the Indian higher-education system expands, the need for high-quality academic leadership will be critical.

“Yale has already done excellent work in this area,” he said, noting that the training programs will be open to public-university administrators from all parts of India.

The five-year arrangement, which is to take effect in January, is anchored by a leadership program to be developed by the three institutions. It will be based in two Centers of Excellence for Academic Leadership financed by the education ministry.

The three institutions will also engage in research on higher education and organize workshops and seminars in areas of academic administration and leadership designed to support the expansion of Indian higher education.

Yale has demonstrated an interest in working in India. Two years ago, the university pledged $30-million from its endowment to develop deeper ties to India through more course offerings and faculty expertise, expanded student recruitment and research partnerships, and increased faculty and student exchanges. That commitment has since risen to $75-million, said George Joseph, assistant secretary for international affairs at Yale.

Still on the table is the possibility of Yale’s helping to develop some of the 14 “Innovation Universities” proposed last year by Mr. Sibal.