HYDERABAD, India: Billionaire spiritual leader of the world's Ismailis Aga Khan has said ignorance and rejectionism lie at the heart of the conflict between the Western and the Islamic worlds.

Speaking at a ceremony in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad of laying foundation stone for a 50-million-dollar educational centre, Prince Karim Aga Khan said: "The key to future progress in the developing world will be its ability to identify, to develop, and to retain expert and effective home-grown leadership."

"Too many of those who ought to be leading their communities in the hopeful world of tomorrow are being left behind in the real world of today."

Khan urged a renewed effort to promote pluralism and tolerance through education, while also addressing festering political disputes and desperate poverty which have contributed to rising extremism.

The coeducational school will initially enroll 750 students from primary to high school age but hopes to expand to 1,200 students, the Aga Khan foundation said.

The school, due to begin academic lessons in 2009, will be built on 100 acres (40 hectares) of land donated by the government of southern Andhra Pradesh state in the capital Hyderabad.

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) and its partners "will invest tens of millions of dollars in the construction and operation of the academy," the statement added.

The school is part of an international network of academies the foundation is building.