New Delhi, May 27: India has asked Britain for financial and technical assistance to set up a new “world class” university (WCU), nearly half a century after it last asked for foreign help in starting a premier education institution.

Junior higher education minister Purandeswari Devi has also asked her British counterpart Bill Rammell for assistance in upgrading facilities and teaching standards at the Indian Institutes of Technology, government officials told The Telegraph.

No post-Independence central university — the WCUs will be run from New Delhi — has been set up with support from a foreign country.

Some of the older IITs — like those in Mumbai, Kanpur, Chennai and Delhi — were set up in the late 1950s and early 1960s with assistance from the USSR, Cold War rival US, West Germany and the UK..

The human resource development ministry’s latest call for help has come at a time when other developing countries — especially in Asia and Africa — are increasingly turning to India for assistance in improving their education system.

IIT Delhi is helping Nepal’s Tribhuvan University develop its engineering wing. IIT Mumbai is working with the Nelson Mandela Foundation — an NGO — to start a pan-African institute of excellence. It is also helping Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries develop engineering schools.

Sources said Purandeswari told Rammell at a meeting in Delhi yesterday that India needed assistance in modernising teacher-training programmes in higher education.

Faculty support — a euphemism for greater participation of guest lecturers from the foreign country — was another request put forward by Purandeswari, the sources said, adding that she also dwelt on skill development — educating students for the job market — as a “key issue”.

Rammell is learnt to have told the minister that the UK was in the process of restructuring its own skill development process, and was willing to share its experiences.

The two ministers are expected to meet again in London on July 18 or 19.

The sources said India, at yesterday’s meeting, indicated its desire to firm up details of the plan before the end of the year. Higher education secretary R.P. Agrawal asked Rammell if the deal could be finalised by July, but the British minister evaded any commitment to a timeline.

“Since our academic session starts in July, we wanted an early conclusion to the talks,” an official said.

In March this year, education minister Arjun Singh had announced locations for 14 WCUs the Centre plans to set up during the eleventh plan.

The universities are set to come up in Bengal (Calcutta), Assam, Orissa, Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

The universities will be controlled by the Centre but kept distinct from existing central universities, and will be nurtured to compete with institutions like Harvard and Cambridge.