At a Seminar in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on 4-6 April 2006, subject packs for 17 new courses were handed over to staff of Tajikistan Agrarian University in the latest phase of an EC-funded Tempus Tacis project led by David Walker of NRI, with partners from the Netherlands (University of Larenstein) and Uzbekistan (Bukhara Technological Institute of Food and Light Industry, and the Bukhara Bank and Economics College), to develop and disseminate up-to-date and relevant curricula in the economics of agricultural commodities.
The subject packs for the new courses have been written in Russian and will be used in the undergraduate teaching programmes of Tajikistan Agrarian University and by other universities in Tajikistan. The courses cover many aspects of the economics of production and marketing of a range of commodities relevant to Tajikistan's agro-economic development.
Project leader David Walker (back row, 3rd from right) and other delegates after the Seminar in Dushanbe
© University of Greenwich
The seminar, entitled "Dissemination of New Curricula for the Economics of Agricultural Commodities and Experiences of an EU Tempus Tacis Project", was attended by about 30 delegates including representatives from the project's partner institutions (in the UK, the Netherlands and Uzbekistan) and staff of Tajikistan Agrarian University.
The first phase of this programme was focused on developing new curricula in agro-commodity economics for use by the two Uzbekistan partner institutions in Bukhara. David Walker explains "The curricular material that we had developed was prepared as practical subject packs in the Uzbek language, and these teaching packs were then disseminated and extended to 10 vocational colleges and 22 universities throughout Uzbekistan. Following the success of this work in Uzbekistan, we have now been adapting and supplementing the material for the needs of Tajikistan, including translation into Russian."
For more information about this project, contact David Walker (D.J.Walker@gre.ac.uk).