By Arun Kumar

Washington, Oct 31 (IANS) India has promised a level playing field to top US institutions in a bid to encourage foreign investment in the education sector as New Delhi seeks partnerships with global institutions to provide quality education at home.

"With the expansion of the higher education sector and the needs of Indian students, we need not just to allow education providers in India to grow, but we also need to provide for foreign investment in the education sector," India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said at a press conference here Friday.

Sibal, who was here to seek partnership with leading American universities for an Indian initiative to set up 14 innovation universities to push research and development, said he was encouraged by the response, which made the trip "exceptionally satisfying".

With the growing expansion of Indian education coupled with the passage of the Right to Education bill, India would have to add hundreds of universities, expand areas of vocational training and provide a reformed curricula, he said.

Grappling with the issue of quality, "we need to bring in education providers who have experienced hundreds of years of quality education and have systems in place to provide quality education", Sibal said.

"The foreign institutions coming to India would have to work within the framework of law. But we have explained that to them. But they'll get a level playing field," he said.

During the visit, Sibal met US Secretary for Education Arne Duncan besides presidents of several leading US universities individually and at a round table at Georgetown University where he spoke on 'Expansion of India's Education Infrastructure and Opportunities for Foreign Universities".

The Indian delegation, headed by Sibal, also participated in a meeting hosted by the US-India Business Council on the subject of investment and collaboration opportunities in higher education in India.

Among those he met in Washington were the presidents of Duke and Georgetown universities. He had met with the presidents of Harvard University, Yale University, Boston University, New York Academy of Sciences and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in New York earlier.