Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir Saturday signed two memoranda of understanding (MoU) with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) Coimbatore and Assam Agricultural University (AAU)Jorhat to foster academics and research collaboration.
The MoUs were signed on the sidelines of two-day annual review meeting of the World Bank ICAR-funded National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP) at the SKUAST-K Shalimar campus. Another MoU was signed between the SKUAST-Jammu and TNAU at the same venue.
The MoUs aim to promote student exchanges through the joint sandwich and twining postgraduate degree programmes, faculty exchange, joint conferences, seminars and workshops in areas of common interest.
The MoU between SKUAST-K and TNAU was signed by the two vice chancellors Prof Nazir Ahmad and Prof V Geethalakshmi in the presence of officers of the two universities. AAU Jorhat was represented by its Vice Chancellor Prof Bidyut Chandan Deka in the signing ceremony of the MoU with the VC SKUAST-K.
Besides 26 vice chancellors from the top agricultural universities and institutions, the DDG Education ICAR and National Director NAHEP, Dr RC Agrawal, national coordinators of NAHEP, Dr P Ramasundaram and Dr Hema Tripathi, top officials of ICAR, principal and co-principal investigators from IDP universities and officers took part in the two-day annual review meeting of the NAHEP, which was held for the first time, outside ICAR headquarters New Delhi, at Srinagar and concluded on Saturday.
The visiting vice chancellors and directors also visited the Faculty of Veterinary Shuhama, Faculty of Agriculture Wadura and other SKUAST-K facilities to observe the progress made by the university under NAHEP.
The World Bank-funded NAHEP formulated by ICAR with a total cost of Rs 1100 crore aims to develop resources and mechanisms for supporting infrastructure, faculty and student advancement, and providing means for better governance and management of agricultural universities to raise the standard of current agricultural education in the country. The Institutional Development Plan (IDP) component of NAHEP envisions orienting agricultural education towards entrepreneurship and job creation and bringing it on par with the global agriculture education standards.
SKUAST-K, which was awarded Rs 29-cr grant under the project in 2019, has emerged as a top-performing university and has been described as the torchbearer in achieving the project objectives.