Srinagar: A two-week refresher course in science started at the University of Kashmir on Monday.
Vice-Chancellor Prof Talat Ahmad inaugurated the online course, organised by the varsity’s UGC-HRDC for college and university teachers from within and outside J&K.
In his presidential address, Prof Talat said the progress of science and its discoveries, advancements, inventions and interventions have made a significant impact on mankind from time to time, particularly in making human existence on the planet Earth easier and pleasant.
“Courses like these allow an interaction among participants to come up with solutions to varied societal problems,” Prof Talat said, urging the participants to write quality research papers and submit proposals for research grants for funding from various funding agencies.
Prof Neelofar Khan, who was a guest of honour on the occasion, said refresher courses in different streams enable discussions and deliberations on different challenges that the society is faced with and facilitate solutions for the same.
She applauded the efforts of the UGC-HRDC in conducting refresher courses in online mode after the outbreak of Covid-19.
In his welcome address, Director UGC-HRDC Prof Mushtaq Ahmad Darzi highlighted the role of the Centre in training a good number of teachers in the past three decades of its establishment.
Prof Darzi said the refresher course in science has been planned to enable university and college teachers to get acquainted with the emerging challenges in science education and research. He said the HRDC is a platform for teachers to learn from the expertise of top academics and researchers and eventually take that learning into the classrooms for the benefit of students.
Dr Manzoor Ahmad, Coordinator for the Refresher Course said the very important and recent developments in different areas of sciences viz. Immunology, Cancer Biology, Tuberculosis, Astrophysics, Artificial Intelligence, Geoinformatics and Digital Image Processing will be discussed by the experts from reputed institutions including Cardiff University UK, Virginia University USA, JNU, Delhi University, IIT Kanpur, IISER Pune and BARC.
Dr Sumeer Gul coordinator UGC-HRDC highlighted the role of HRDC in enhancing knowledge, competency, skills and motivation of scholars towards writing good research proposals and conducting quality research of international standards. He also presented a vote of thanks.

KR Desk