The British Universities are looking to build strong links not only with Indian educational institutions but also the industry through collaborations.

Many of these universities are looking for tie-ups with industry players, both public and private, to set up research centres and help improve the level of skill in the country. That India was important in the United Kingdom's scheme of things became amply clear during the British Council sponsored `Get Connected', a seminar on telecommunications education, training and research in Mumbai on Monday.

According to Mr Peter Mackenzie Smith, director of education, Marconi plc, and the UK team leader for seminar, the UK government had set a £8 billion education export per year target for itself. "Education is an international business today. And we are part of the collective effort to extend UK's educational expertise globally," he said.

Consultancy firm Arthur Andersen, which was commissioned by British Council, estimates the size of the Indian telecom market at about £4,500 million and is expected to grow by 15-20 per cent for the next few years. The shortage in trained and skilled manpower requirements in the electronics and computer disciplines would be 2,35,000 professionals in the year 2001-02.

Drawing parallels between UK and India, Mr Mackenzie said: "The Indian telecom industry is being deregulated much the same way as its UK counterpart a few years ago. When UK regulated its telecom industry, the training institutes played a major role in developing the required skills. The same can happen in India too."

The UK Universities have various models of working together with their Indian opposite numbers in mind. These include joint research programmes, joint publication presentations and scholarship programmes in which Indian students after being selected by their respective colleges will be given higher training in telecom. The University College of London for one has such a thing in mind.

Says Professor, John J.O'Reilly, head of the department of electronic & electrical engineering: "We are certainly looking at working jointly with the IITs through research collaborations, joint projects or scholarship programmes. We will be talking to various IITs soon." In fact, the UCL envisages the selection of 15-20 researchers for its scholarship programme in the next three years. Also being envisaged are collaborations with companies, especially in setting up research centres.

"India must have its own research if it is to catch up with the rest of the world in telecom," Dr Zhili Sun told The Financial Express on the sidelines of the seminar. He felt that the international telecom players must be roped in for the country's research and development efforts as it happened in China, his native country.

"In China, all the major telecom players including Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia have set up their own research centres," Dr Sun said. The speakers were as unanimous in saying that India had the necessary skills for telecom as they were in emphasising that there would be a short fall given the growth projections. According to Mr Mackenzie, the areas that would have considerable demand for training include telecom business management and technology management. Mr Derek Parker, executive director, United Kingdom telecommunications Academy said training in telecom is crucial because it is very expensive ($500 per student per day) and the rate of obsolescence is very high and that there was the need for practical training and training facilities.