new delhi while some form of governance was essential it is our hope that the tweaking of the policy framework will encourage foreign universities to set up their campuses in the country said minister of state for hrd shashi tharoor while speaking about indian education scenario he was addressing the 9th ficci higher education summit 2013 on the theme building networks for transforming indian higher education on wednesday tharoor also urged the indian private sector to come forward in a big way to fund research and development programmes of indian universities he stated that research is the key to enhancing the quality of higher education institutions an area which has remained neglected as most of the indian universities are still primarily teaching institutions he also mentioned that in india the government invests around 80 in research and development where as in the oecd organisation for economic cooperation and development countries and developed west almost 75 of the investment in rd is from the private sector the minister emphasised on the need for vocational training among the students he suggested that more private sector organisations need to come forward to set up centres of vocational training in order to complement the governments efforts in this area he informed the gathering that the government had decided to set up over 200 community colleges which will offer skill based vocational training to school dropouts to make them employable citizens brad wall the premier of saskatchewan canada whose speech was read out by andy melnyk senior strategist innovation saskatchewan canada described india as a major priority for the canadian province and called upon the stakeholders of the indian higher education sector to avail of the high level of research and innovation in saskatchewan universities to tackle indias major challenges such as food security and energy security naina lal kidwai president of ficci said entry barriers for setting up higher education institutions and universities should be removed this will be a positive step forward to attract credible private sector to invest in the higher education space the twoday summit has been organised by ficci in partnership with the ministry of human resource development and planning commission