Prof. Dr. M. Lutfar Rahman, Vice Chancellor, Mr. Md. Emran Hossain, Director (Administration) and Mr. Nadir Bin Ali, Deputy Director (IT) of Daffodil International University along with participants of 2nd Annual Conference of the South Asia Anglia Partnership held at University of Mysore, India.
Prof. Dr. M. Lutfar Rahman, Vice Chancellor, Mr. Md. Emran Hossain, Director (Administration) and Mr. Nadir Bin Ali, Deputy Director (IT) of Daffodil International University attended 2nd Annual Conference of the South Asia Anglia Partnership at University of Mysore in the historical city of Mysore in India held on November 18-19, 2014.The theme for the conference was the ‘Role of Universities in our respective Economies and the subsequent implications on funding.’ As a consortium that brings together a mix of public and private institutions; and a range of higher education systems with their own unique characteristics and challenges - the discussions over the last two days have been insightful and the debate robust. Vice Chancellors and high officials of different universities of South Asian Region attended the seminar and delivered their thoughtful presentations and guidelines.
The conference discussed about the key points on the role of Universities in engaging and harnessing the demographic dividend of the region. Home to nearly one quarter of the world's population, South Asia's rapid population growth has resulted in an increase in demand for Higher Education which educational institutions in the region have tried very hard to meet. With this has come a host of challenges; scarcity of expert academics, higher teacher to student ratios and a shortage of research output both in terms of quantity and quality. This is especially true in India where soon (by 2020) more than half the population will be under 25 and the middle class will grow to more than 500 million people.
The conference stressed on several best practices in remedying some of these problems emerged. Increasing employability skills is an important factor and several examples of active involvement of employers in curriculum development to help achieve this were highlighted. In addition to this all of us acknowledged the importance of entrepreneurship skills in nurturing the leaders of tomorrow. This is being achieved by the introduction of entrepreneurial skill modules as part of the regular curriculum available to all students irrespective of their main subject of study. In addition, entrepreneurship is further supported via seed funding, on-campus business start-up and incubation centres providing free office space, administration and patent services. Research is a key focus of each of our institutions and we recognized that this partnership can help pool resources and connect experts via a network that gives us the best chance of success with proposals for international research funding.
The 3rd Annual South Asia Anglia Partnership Conference in Dubai on Tuesday 10th & Wednesday 11th of November 2015.
