ICAR Announces First International Conference In Collaboration With World Bank

The World Bank and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the apex body for co-ordinating, guiding, and managing agricultural research and education, have announced the first International Conference on 'Blended Learning Ecosystem for Higher Education in Agriculture' in India under the National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP).

The three-day event will be hosted by ICAR-IASRI (Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute) in New Delhi from March 21-23. It is a multi-partner global forum to support collaboration for the development of a state-of-the-art blended education system for higher agricultural education.

The goal of this conference is to facilitate the creation of a global ecosystem of partners from academia, industry, government, and multilateral and bilateral organizations who can provide critical insights into the design and full-scale implementation of all aspects of the Resilient Agricultural Education System (RAES) under the National Agricultural Higher Education Project, including a learning management system, a content repository, and system-wide capacity building.

Aside from the engaging discussions, the three-day event will also feature an exhibition on the diverse range of agricultural services and offerings, as well as blended learning.

Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, will open the conference and exhibition. Various other ministries, as well as world-class institutions such as AICTE, IIT, and IRRI, will take part.

Himanshu Pathak, Secretary, Department of Agriculture Research and Education (DARE) and Director General (DG), ICAR, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; R.C. Agrawal, Deputy Director General Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; and Auguste Tano Kouame, Country Director, World Bank are among those speaking at the conference.

Himanshu Pathak, Secretary, DARE, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, stated, "According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), India's agriculture sector contributes 17-18% of the country's Gross Value Added and employs more than 40% of the workforce. Farmers are implementing new technologies to improve crop health and production. Truly blended learning adoption has enormous potential and has the potential to propel the agriculture economy to new heights."

R.C. Agrawal, Deputy Director General of the Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) commented while elaborating more on the conference, "The conference's goal is to improve collaboration among various implementing agencies working in the fields of remote learning, digital education, and blended education systems. It will also aid in the establishment of synergies with flagship programmes such as Digital India and Skill India to accelerate the deployment of NAHEP's Resilient Agricultural Education System (RAES)."

The conference is organized around thematic areas such as blended teaching-learning strategies, blended learning technologies, blended learning ecosystem sustainability, building stakeholder capacities to navigate in a blended teaching-learning ecosystem, and contemporary curriculum for agricultural education. NAHEP, which was proposed on a 50:50 cost-sharing basis by the World Bank and the Central Government, was developed by ICAR for a total cost of $165 million over five years in the fiscal year 2017-18. It was undertaken to strengthen the country's National Agricultural Education System.

-IANS, Business Standard 

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