Elite club recognizes university credentials across borders.
By The American Bazaar Staff
NEW DELHI: India has officially become a signatory of the Washington Accord, a treaty established among several nations to facilitate the movement of engineers through these nations.
Created in 1989, the Washington Accord was made in order to facilitate a freer exchange of engineering and technically educated individuals among the countries who are participants in the treaty. These countries are: the US, Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, the Koreas, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, and the UK.
Member nations are required to uphold rigorous accreditation standards at their universities, in order to make sure that certain educational benchmarks are met that are considered to be critical in every country where a student could potentially seek employment or even further education.
India joined the ranks of these countries on Friday; India is now a permanent member of the Washington Accord. The signing is seen as a huge step forward for India, which is already making big moves to make itself more palatable to other countries and outside markets in the wake of Narendra Modi’s victory as the nation’s new Prime Minister.
Now, all institutions that are recognized by the National Board of Accreditation, India’s autonomous body created to accredit all technical education programs in the country, will have their degrees recognized in all the other nations that are part of the Washington Accord. This is a huge boon to STEM and IT students in India, who often have plans of moving out of the country to the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
India signed the Washington Accord at a meeting of the International Engineering Alliance in Wellington, New Zealand, and India’s status as a member country went into full effect immediately. Former Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister M.M. Pallam Raju tweeted that Friday’s signing was the culmination of a seven-year campaign to be added to the Accord.
Raju’s efforts to finally sign the Washington Accord were first initiated by his predecessor, Kapil Sibal. Current HRD Minister Smriti Irani tweeted her elation, as well, saying that the move will “substantially enhance [Indians’] employment opportunities around the world.”