ICAR, World Bank hosts ‘Int’l Conference on Blended Learning Ecosystem for Higher Education in Agriculture’

The International Conference on Blended Learning Ecosystem for Higher Education in Agriculture 2023, hosted jointly by The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the World Bank from March 21-23 as a part of the National Agricultural Higher Education Project’s (NAHEP) Resilient Agricultural Education System (RAES) development 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.

A Blended Learning Platform focused on improving Digital Infrastructure across Agricultural Higher Education Institutions (A-HEIs) was unveiled by ICAR and World Bank to strengthen deployment of immersive technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) Experiences and Virtual Classrooms.

Undertaken to strengthen the National Agricultural Education System in the country, NAHEP is a five-year project initiated in 2018 with equal contribution of $82.5 million (about Rs 600 crore) each from the World Bank and the central government.

The World Bank loan is to be repaid over 19 years after a grace period of five years, The purpose of NAHEP is to transform agricultural higher education. The Blended Learning Platform is part of the project.

About 1,000 students and 450 faculty members from 20 agricultural universities have completed international training at 89 institutes in 27 countries in 160 subjects under NAHEP till date.

More than 900 experiential learning units where students can get hands-on experience for six months and become proficient in subjects as diverse as genomics and tea processing have been set up at various universities.

The digital content repository has more than 160 digitised courses and faculty members have uploaded more than 10,000 videos.