St Xavier's ties up with Canadian university

St Xavier's College, Kolkata, has signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with University of Manitoba, Canada, for starting an academic exchange programme.

The cooperation includes rolling-out courses in food technology, to begin with, which will be followed by specialised courses in areas like medical and industrial biotechnology, IT, computer science and humanities studies at different academic levels.

This is the first collaboration of St Xavier's College with a foreign university, and include joint research along with students and teachers' exchange programmes.

The details of the courses, along with their financial aspects, were yet to be finalised, said P C Mathew, principal, St Xavier's College.

The reason behind choosing St Xavier's College for academic collaboration was its autonomous nature, along with its good reputation outside India, said Michael Trevan, dean of faculty of agriculture services, Manitoba University, which has have about 100 such collaborations worldwide.

The tie-up will facilitate linking the Indian college with several other East European Universities, with which Manitoba has have close links.

"We will use the bilateral agreement as multilateral ones. It is not possible for one country alone to solve the problems of food security, which will be a big problem in the future. By 2050, the world will have to produce 75 per cent more food than what it is producing now, that too without using more land. This is an enormous challenge before us. Other issues like climate change are irrelevant, if we do not find a proper solution to food-related problems," said Trevan.