Yale inks MoU with IIM-K and IIT Kanpur

The Yale India Leadership programme, to be launched in collaboration with IIM-Kozhikode and IIT-Kanpur, will enable vice-chancellors and deans of prestigious Indian institutions to get an exposure of the best practices of institutional management in the US.

The agreement was signed by Yale University president Dr Richard Levin and IIM-K director Prof Debashis Chatterjee and IIT-Kanpur director Sanjay Dhande in the presence of Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday.

It will facilitate setting up of a Centre of Excellence in Academic Leadership (CEEALs) –at IIM Kozhikode campus and aid a leadership program focused on Vice Chancellors, Directors, Deans and current-to-future Academic Leaders in India, a news communique from IIM Kozhikode said. The MoU will come into effect from January 1, 2011.

The five-year partnership, part of the knowledge initiative launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama during the former’s visit to the US in November last year, is aimed at advancing the cause of higher eduction in the country and “addressing the problem of leadership vacuum” in higher eduction sector, Sibal said.
Yale University will collaborate with IIM K & IIT Kanpur to launch a series of exchange programmes in academic leadership. The pathways of collaboration, the release said, is through longer-term sustained efforts on faculty development, leadership training between Yale and the Indian institutes.

Follow-up programmes

According to Sibal, the Centre would like to see such a programme take place at the Yale University for two years after which the programme could have follow-up programmes and activities in India.

Levin said the programme would be launched on a modest scale in the initial phase with the training of 30 to 40 vice chancellors at their campus. Yale has also been working closely with China on similar efforts to advance higher education reforms in that country.