National Agrarian Science and Education Centre carries out transformation of agrarian science
A roundtable saw Chairman of the Board of the National Agrarian Science and Education Centre Toleutai Rakhimbekov speaking of issues of agrarian science and education, scientific achievements of the Centre, the tasks set before the Centre, Strategy2050.kz reports with reference to the Centre’s press service.
The Centre began transforming agrarian science by transferring most of institutes to universities therefore reducing their number, increasing experimental farms to 40 through private agricultural organizations, financing scientists, allocating budgetary funds to transfer and commercialize technologies, creating collective labs and introducing independent expertise of science.
The electronic database formed by the National Agrarian Science and Education Centre indicates some 700 scientific works at the Centre.
“We have proposed key changes in the field of scientific and educational activities of research institutes and universities. They include the transformation of agrarian universities into research universities, an increase in the share of time of scientific research institutes for teaching activities up to 20%, and university teachers for scientific activities up to 30%,” the. Centre’s Chairman said.
He also spoke of the issues facing agrarian science.
“We analyzed the situation in domestic agricultural science, as well as studied the experience of other countries and came to a conclusion that the main problem is the insufficient number of organizations for the transfer of knowledge, transfer and commercialization of technologies,” he said.
In this regard, the Centre proposes to develop and approve by the Government a programme to create a nationwide system of agrarian knowledge dissemination.
The Centre has already been establishing a system of training rural residents in farming
skills using a three-level system, including national, regional and district levels. In total, there are plans to establish more than 200 knowledge dissemination centres in a bid to integrate science, education and agribusiness.
Of note is that the programme does not require additional budgetary funds. The Centre proposes to unite all state tools for teaching rural residents farming skills - through the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Labor (Enbek Program) and the Ministry of National Economy (DKB Program), as well as from the regional budgets.
The Centre’s `chairman also spoke of the initiative to develop programmes for the development of scientific towns. Some of the institutions of the Centre are located in rural areas and for 32 villages they are city-forming, responsible for the overhaul of social and engineering infrastructure, the construction of residential buildings, the creation of conditions for increasing the income of self-employed.
To this end, it is proposed to use the capabilities of all state programs - Nurly Zher, Auyl-el besіgі, Enbek, and the development of the agro- industrial complex. The implementation of this initiative will increase the attractiveness of villages for young scientists.
