Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

Monday, January 16 2012

The University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with India’s leading petroleum university Pandit Deedayal Petroleum University (PDPU) on the official state visit to India by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and a team of Government Ministers and technocrats.

The MOU includes faculty and student exchanges, joint research projects and other areas of collaboration. Signing on behalf of UTT was chairman of the Board of Governors, Curtis Roland Manchoon.

The signing of the MOU was witnessed by Minister of Science of Technology and Tertiary Education Fazal Karim, who in a brief address referred to the Technical Cooperation Agreement signed by the Prime Ministers of India and Trinidad and Tobago respectively, which established the framework for economic cooperation between Trinidad and Tobago and India, one of the world's leading economies today.

PDPU is chaired by Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries and Reliance Petroleum, and is reputed to be one of the world’s most powerful men according to Forbe’s Magazine, and the second richest man in Asia. Reliance Petroleum will also be making investments in the local petrochemical sector. While in the city of Ahmenabad, in the state of Gujrat, the MSTTE/UTT team, who included the Permanent Secretary of MSTTE Jaggernauth Soom and UTT’s Assistant Vice-President of Professional Education Unit Zameer Mohammed, also visited the Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM).

Similar discussions were held regarding cooperation and partnership for programme development as well as staff and student exchanges.

Gujrat is said to be one of the leading business states in India, where many entrepreneurs and leading business enterprises have been born.

EDI has played an important role in the development of entrepreneurship not only in Gujrat but throughout India, and IIM which is a world leader in management education. It is said when applicants fail to secure a place at IIM, they then turn to Harvard and Standford in the US.

Given the transformation of the Indian economy over the last two decades and the role that higher education and entrepreneurial development has played, both the MSTTE and UTT will be seeking to fully implement these agreements within the earliest possible time frame.