Daily Times

The 16th Council meeting of National Agriculture Education Accreditation Council (NAEAC) was held in Mural Hall, Higher Education Commission, Islamabad.

After recitation, Prof Dr Ishtiaq A Rajwana, Chairperson NAEAC, welcomed all members and presented the achievements of council during last financial year with future vision to improve its working. He highlighted major challenges like financial sustainability of council, revision of evaluation tool kit, enhancement of evaluator pool, hand holding of emerging HEIs for improving standards of education. However, he raised his concern about mushroom growth of agricultural DAI’s in the country without formal approvals and infrastructure.

Later Dr. Abdul Ghaffar, Council Secretary presented the agenda items one by one. Council members unanimously approved the minutes of 15th meeting, annual work plan, accreditation rating of various universities awarded in the last fiscal year and budget for year 2020-21.

During the meeting, vice chancellors/representatives of all seven agricultural universities of Pakistan joined online to inaugurate Agriculture Personnel Registration System (APRS). Prof. Dr. Dost Mohammad Baloch, Vice Chancellor, Lasbela University of Agriculture Water and Marine Sciences expressed it a beginning of new era in the agriculture education while Prof. Dr. Masroor Elahi Babar, Vice Chancellor University of Agriculture, Dera Ismail Khan appreciated NAEAC for such initiative which will help in creation of database that will help the policy makers to devise better policies for the agriculture graduates produced in various HEIs across Pakistan. All the online participants appreciated the initiative and assured their full cooperation to implement the system on ground.

In the concluding session Chairperson NAEAC thanked all the honorable members for their participation and valuable suggestions for uplifting the quality of agriculture education across Pakistan and assured his full commitment to maintain highest standards across the board.