Souvenir-International Conference on Blended Learning Ecosystem for Higher Education in Agriculture (ICBLE 2023)

Abstract

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the apex body for co-ordinating, guiding and managing research and education in agriculture, and World Bank have come together to announce the first International Conference on 'Blended Learning Ecosystem for Higher Education in Agriculture' in India under the National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP). The three-day event to be held from March 21-23 in New Delhi will be hosted by ICAR - Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute (IASRI), which is a multi-partner global forum to support collaboration for development of state-of-the-art blended education system for higher agricultural education. The aim of this conference is to facilitate the development of a global ecosystem of partners from academia, industry, government, and multilateral and bilateral organizations who would provide critical insights towards design and full-scale implementation of all aspects of the Resilient Agricultural Education System (RAES) under National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP), that is, learning management system, content repository, and system-wide capacity building. Apart from the engaging discussions the three-day event will also showcase an exhibition on the diverse range of services and offerings in the field of agriculture education and blended learning. Furthermore, these insights would be utilized towards strengthening the quality of the full-scale implementation of this development initiative. The amalgamation of leading practices as identified during the conference would serve as a knowledge, to be utilized by various education systems to adapt and emulate in their own countries. This would strengthen the collaboration among multiple implementing agencies working in the domain of digital education and blended learning ecosystem and provide strategies for making this digital transformation sustainable. The digital initiatives are focused to empower the students/faculties and administration in one way or the other and transform the agricultural education system across the country. The agricultural education system is evolving for the sake of betterment, as this generation of students are not born to be confined to the limits of simple learning; their curiosity is vast and cannot be catered with the legacy education systems. We would like to thank each and every one of the participants who have contributed directly and indirectly for the success of this International Conference on Blended Learning Ecosystem for Higher Education in Agriculture. We would also like to convey our thanks to World Bank, Staff of ICAR Headquarters, Project Implementation Unit of NAHEP, ICAR - IASRI and special thanks to the team from EY LLP, PwC and Pavilion and Interiors for their technical inputs and support in organization and management of this International Conference.