CHENNAI: In a move to revolutionise higher education in agriculture in India, the World Bank and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) have recently launched the National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP), a `1,100 cr project that will benefit all 75 agricultural universities under ICAR in the country.
“Through this project, we want to attract more talented students, competent faculty and innovative researchers into the field of agriculture,” said Narendra Singh Rathore, Deputy Director-General (Agricultural Education), ICAR, speaking to Express in Chennai.
The funding for NAHEP is split into half and shared by Government of India and World Bank. The funds will be disbursed by ICAR to improve infrastructure and facilities, to researchers who show academic excellence and to innovative projects that need scaling up.
NAHEP is aimed at improving the relevance and quality of higher education in agriculture. “It will fund capacity building initiatives and reforms that promote financial and academic autonomy in the institutions,” said Rathore claiming that it will align students to learn demands of private and public sectors to increase employability.
The project aims at reforming the agricultural higher education scenario, that is infested by pervasive academic inbreeding. According to the project document issued by World Bank, “51% of Agricultural University faculty have earned all their degrees from the same university. Only 17% of faculty recruits are new to the respective university, and 46% of faculty have more than 15 years experience at the same institution.” This situation has led to limited interaction with researchers and agri-industries. Coupled with high faculty vacancy rate in agri universities, this inbreeding has led to lack of competitiveness and incentives.
“Entry of a competitive atmosphere in agricultural universities would bridge the gap between agricultural higher education and future employment, even in the private sector,” said Rathore adding that most students look out only for a government job after graduating from an agricultural university. He added that infusion of frontier science in higher education agriculture research is the need of the hour given that this industry too is battling globalisation and climate change.
Funded by GOI and World Bank
The funding for NAHEP is split into half and shared by Government of India and the World Bank. NAHEP is aimed at improving the relevance and quality of higher education in agriculture.