India helping African countries bridge digital divide: MoS External Affairs Muraleedharan

New Delhi [India], October 22 (ANI): Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan has highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's guiding principle to share India's experience with the digital revolution to support Africa's development and spread digital literacy in Africa.
Muraleedharan said that India is helping African countries bridge the Digital divide.
Addressing the second edition of the India-Africa Higher Education and Skill Development Summit virtually on Thursday, the MoS said that providing quality higher education with relevant skills aligned with the needs of the market remains one of the most important challenges today.
Taking to Twitter, he informed, "Delivered keynote address at the INDIA-AFRICA Higher Education & Skill Development Summit organised by Confederation of Indian Industry. Participation by Ministers from several African countries is a testament to our friendship & increasing cooperation in education & enhancing Human Resources capacity."
Talking about Sustainable Development Goals targeted to be achieved by 2030, the minister said the SDG commits to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
"To achieve this goal, India is providing higher education to its aspirational youth through more than 55,000 educational institutions. Government of India launched the New National Education Policy in July 2020 that focuses on skills needed by the youth of the 21st century India," Muraleedharan said.
Highlighting the government's effort to promote skill development in India, he said the government created a separate ministry to train over 400 million Indians in different industry-related jobs through the "Skill India initiative".
Further talking about India-Africa ties, he said that several current or former Presidents, Prime Ministers and Vice Presidents in Africa have studied in educational or training institutions in India.
"Under our capacity building initiatives, thousands of public officials, teachers, entrepreneurs, doctors have been trained or obtained their degrees in India," said the minister.
He further added that more than 23,000 students enrolled in Indian Institutions in the various short term, undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD courses in the last three years. Students from Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mauritius and Zambia were the largest beneficiaries of Indian academics.
The minister further informed that India has launched the 'Study in India' to boost the number of inbound international students.
"The program brings together various scholarship and self-financing programmes to attract students from our partner countries, including Africa, to come and experience the very best of academic learning from the top institutions in India," he said.
Muraleedharan said that India is helping African countries to bridge the digital divide. The Pan Africa e-Network, launched in Africa at the continental level is aimed at harnessing socio-economic benefits of ICT for tele-education and telemedicine.
"The project aims to provide at least 15000 free education/scholarships over a period of 5 years to African learners for Certificate, Diploma, Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes in various disciplines. 6 Indian universities have joined as partner universities and are providing tele-education under the project," he said.
The MoS hoped that the two countries can empower the youth together through quality education and skill development. (ANI)