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The United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) declared an open competition for supporting the projects through the Indo-U.S. 21st Century Knowledge Initiative (earlier known as the Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative). The Knowledge Initiative's main purpose is to enhance the collaboration and further establish partnerships between Indian and American institutions of higher education.
The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has formed a Centre of Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics - Education and Research (STEM-ER) in compliance with the Ohio State University (OSU), US, under the Indo-U.S. 21st Century Initiative.
The primary objective behind STEM-ER is to train graduate students to become world-class researchers and professors at the University level. A statement from AMU on 15th April 2017 clearly states its expansion into an Indo-US STEM-ER Consortium of Indian and US Universities, which will compass higher education institutions across India.
Also Read: Learn about Aligarh Open University (AOU) Programme
This Centre will provide support to the pilot project, which is jointly initiated under the OSU-AMU partnership. This collaboration has now developed into a novel dual degree programme, with a graduate degree from AMU and a newly designed two-year master degree with STEM specialisation. This degree will focus equally on advanced research and education. The Aligarh Muslim University will become an "Innovation Incubator" for advanced teaching and learning in STEM subjects which will ultimately provide encouragement to the local, state, national and international STEM education outreach.
An AMU-OSU Symposium was held under the supervision of Prof. Anil Pradhan, Director and Prof. Sultana N. Nahar, Associate Director, OSU, with Dr. Craig L. Dicker, Counselor, Cultural Affairs, US Embassy, New Delhi as the chief speaker.
Considering the participation of women scholars in the STEM-ER programme, Dr. Dicker said that in most STEM programmes, the majority of students, in any country, be it US or India are men. He also added that by engaging female students as STEM specialists, this project will serve as a role model for building a gender-balanced programme.
Also Read: IIE & Goldman Sachs Jointly to Start Scholarship Programme for Indian Women Students
Dr. Dicker has also cleared that though there was no magic bullet to describe all the challenges faced by Americans and Indians in providing quality STEM education and conducting world-class research, the AMU-OSU joint initiative will surely give some of the answers.
