By TCN News,
New Delhi: A 9-member delegation led by Indonesian Education Attaché, Dr. Son Kuswadi from University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) visited Jamia Millia Islamia to explore possibilities of academic collaboration in various fields of study.
Addressing the delegation, Prof. Talat Ahmad, Vice-Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia expressed his desire to strengthen regional cooperation with countries by promoting social, cultural and scientific exchange. Prof. Ahmad averred that any such academic collaboration should be built around student-exchange, faculty-exchange, joint research and conference. He asked the delegation to identify indigenous funding sources that could propel any such collaboration forward. Seeking internationally sponsored collaborative research projects, he suggested that India and Indonesia could engage in studies related to bio-diversity to experience uniqueness in terms of specific geographical locations that account for physical divergence. He offered his personal support to take such collaborations forward.
The Vice-Chancellor opined that it was easy to have collaborations within Asia since it didn’t involve high cost. Offering to put in place an enabling framework for collaboration with various educational institutions, he sought pursuits of projects with built-in financial commitments. The delegation comprising faculty members from UMM, Indonesia sought short term programmes for individuals that could contribute to faculty development and ensure participation in seminars and conferences. It was emphasized that individuals could pursue research programmes and make use of library resources. They could also benefit through credit transfers. The students of UMM could also participate in virtual classrooms through collaborative efforts and common academic component using technological platform.
The visiting delegation would call on Heads of Departments and Directors of Centres to evaluate opportunities of engagements as per the existing academic programmes in the field of social sciences and law.
Earlier, Prof. Talat Ahmad spoke in favour of creating special “sandwiched programmes” to allow teachers to move in and out between two collaborating universities for capacity building.