These days, many institutions sign Memorandum of understanding( MoU) between the institution and a university or institution abroad and announcement in the press and media channels are made with photographs of foreign dignitaries visiting the institute and signing the MoU. On some occasions, a team from the institute may also visit the institution on the foreign soil too. But often nothing more happens beyond that. For such interaction to be meaningful, there should be follow up activities beneficial to both institutions, with neither dominating.
NITC also have signed MOU between
a few universities abroad while I
was part of the academic administration.
There was one with which we had conducted a one-day seminar with
three professors from Georgia University Atlanta USA and
had some interaction them even later.
Similarly, a few academic personnel from a university in
Taiwan visited us and our Director with one of
the Deans visited Taiwan, but
nothing happened afterwards. A faculty interchange
program existed for a few years between
Purdue University and NITC Department of Computer Science. As our
director never missed an
opportunity for a travel abroad on
institute expenses, when Ngee Ann Polytechnic
Singapore came up with a proposal to train a
batch of their ICT ( Information, Communication Technology) students
at N.I.T. Calicut, he accepted the offer without any
hesitation.
This was under an Insight
Program for Discovering India as per the
agreement between the Prime Ministers of
Singapore and India. Under this scheme, around
30 students and two members of faculty from
Ngee Ann Polytechnic Singapore were to stay in the NITC campus for six
weeks and were required to attend classes on various developments in
India. The programme included a series of lectures by
eminent people on the history, software industry, social
life etc and included visits to historical and other
places in India. All expenses for their accommodation,
food and other items were to be paid by
the Ngee Ann Poly. Details of
the project were worked out and the
formal agreement for the
program was to be signed by the Directors of
the two institutions. Director was going to Singapore for the
first time, and as he knew that I had been in
Singapore on a visiting assignment, he
wanted me to accompany him. As I
was quite familiar with the place, I was not
interested, but as the boss was insisting,
I had to oblige. My duty obviously was to
travel with him and show him Singapore.
We reached Singapore by Air
India flight from Chennai and reached Changi Airport by
8PM. Representatives from Ngee Ann Polytechnic
were available to receive us and we
took us to their newly constructed guest
house after dinner from a ‘banana leaf’
restaurant. The smell of fresh paint
welcomed us to the building. Even
though we had some difficulty in
contacting our family due to the international
roaming not available, we could take rest
for the night.
Second day in Singapore
This was the day reserved for
the official work.
After taking our breakfast
from the grand food court in
the Ngee Ann Polytechnic, we met
the Director for formal introduction.
The Director of Ngee Ann Poly was a nice young lady.
We gave a brief presentation on N.I.T.
Calicut and they on their institution.
After the presentations and introduction, we were taken
around the institution to see their
facilities. The projects of the
students were nicely arranged and beautifully described by
their students. Most of them were supported by industry
giants like HP and Microsoft. For a set of
polytechnic students, these were really impressive.
After visiting their ICT labs
in the morning, we were taken to
a vegetarian restaurant and was given
a real Singaporean lunch. Visit to
other labs continued in the afternoon.
Boss was particularly interested in
the Photonics lab and me in the Energy lab. They had
several good projects using
solar energy. The MoU signing
ceremony was at 430 PM and almost all members of
faculty were present in the solemn but
brief function. After a
sumptuous dinner from a
typical Tamil restaurant, we returned to
our lodgings.
Third day
Now that the official work was over, we had
a day for sight-seeing and shopping as Singapore is a big
shopping place like Dubai. The Ngee Ann
poly authorities had arranged a vehicle and one of their teachers to
take us around. Being a Saturday, I
decided to visit Mustafa Super
market and purchased a few things. We had a quick look at
a shopping mall in Orchard road also. After lunch from a
typical Telugu restaurant, we made
a detour of the main places of
sight-seeing in Singapore.
Next destination was the Jurong Bird
park. A quick visit to
the underwater aquarium and dolphin lagoon
followed. After that we moved to Sentosa island,
where there were too many things to see including
the history of Singapore
beautifully picturized. The light and sound show called ‘Song of
the Sea’ is a magnificent show very much
different from the small laser show they
had when we were in Singapore. The design of
the show with musical fountain, multi-color lasers and
fishermen like huts by a French engineer
was really unique. Using laser shows ,
sea animals were dancing beautifully in
the sky and was a treat to watch with back ground music .
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