Srinagar, Nov 23: Vice-Chancellor Western Sydney University, Australia, Prof. Barney Glover and Vice-Chancellor SKUAST-Kashmir, Prof. Nazir Ahmad Ganai signed Memorandum of Understandingat Hotel Shangrila, New Delhi in presence of the Australian Attache and Deputy Director General ICAR.
A statement from the SKUAST reads, “This is a historic move for SKUAST-Kashmir for a PG degree Programme in Sandwi ch and Dual Degree Mode. WSU Australia is ranked first in the world for commitment to UN Sustainable Development Goals, and is globally recognized for innovations in education and research.”
SKUAST-K has a national standing of being 6th Best SAU in the country and also ranked under Band Excellent category by Ministry of Education. As per the university authorities, the extract of this MoU says that for Sandwich Masters Programme, a student has to study 01 year each at 02 Universities under joint supervision of the advisors from SKUAST-K and WSU.
Those students whose grade point at Masters in 8.5/10 and higher, shall get a full tuition fee waiver, which otherwise is $45000 AUD per year. Besides Scholars can get scholarship of $30000 AUD per annum on competition basis for 18 months. Similarly, students with a grade of 80-84% at Masters would be entitled for a fee waiver of 75% and those with grade of 75-79% shall get a tuition fee waiver of 50%. The areas of research interest include a protected and smart agriculture, plant health and biosafety; water, environment; and sustainability, food security, sustainable agriculture and rural development, crop physiology & biotechnology.
Vice-Chancellor SKUAST-Kashmir termed it path breaking for students to acquire new age skills and global leadership qualities from leading Universities across the world. He expressed his vision of expanding such collaborations with other globally ranked Universities, and shall also be opening up SKUAST-K for International Universities.