ICAR and WB host Intl Conference on blended learning in agriculture education
ICAR and World Bank is jointly hosting International Conference on blended learning in agriculture education from March 21 to March 23, 2023.
Indian Council of Agriculture Research and World Bank is jointly hosting International Conference on Blended Learning Ecosystem for Higher Education in Agriculture 2023. The conference is being held from March 21 to March 23, 2023 as a part of the National Agricultural Higher Education Project’s (NAHEP) Resilient Agricultural Education System (RAES) development initiative.
As per a press release issued by ICAR, the NAHEP initiative has more than ten academic partners from around the world representing over ten countries deliberating on the best strategies in blended teaching and learning in agricultural education. NAHEP is a five-year project initiated in 2018 with an aim to transform agricultural higher education.
Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar while addressing the conference said “Since the past five years, the ICAR has reached a new height. When we launched Krishi Megh nobody knew it would act as a gamechanger during the pandemic as it did not let India’s education system be as adversely affected as other countries. I believe even in the future; it will help us in achieving many new accolades. Blended learning and agricultural sector will help India in becoming a developed nation status by 2047.”
The conference which is a 3-day affair is being organised to identify the best strategies in blended teaching and learning, Technologies for Blended Learning, Sustainability in the Blended Learning Ecosystem, Building Stakeholder Capacities to Navigate in a Blended Teaching – Learning Ecosystem and Contemporary Curriculum for Agricultural Education.
Dr. Bekzod Shamsiev, Senior Agriculture Economist, The World Bank at the conference said, “The National Agriculture Higher Education Project (NAHEP) has achieved “almost all targets” and significantly exceeded more than half of them. The next challenge is to transform digital learning into digital agriculture. Agricultural Universities have an important role to play in promoting precision farming, environmental monitoring and automation of agricultural processes. It should lead to better trading systems and market information, efficient supply chain logistics and provide information for better policy making and regulation.”
Till now, around 1000 students and 450 faculty members from 20 agricultural universities have completed international training at 89 institutes in 27 countries in 160 subjects under NAHEP.
Under this initiative, more than 900 experiential learning units have been set up at various universities where students can get hands-on experience for six months and become proficient in subjects as diverse as genomics and tea processing. The digital content repository has more than 160 digitised courses and faculty members have uploaded more than 10,000 videos, read the press statement.
