VISAKHAPATNAM: Andhra University had inked a series of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with the Indian Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Andhra Pradesh Sainik Welfare Board in 2017 and 2018.
But the university’s defence joint education programme hit another milestone in July 2018 following varsity officials’ meeting with then Army chief General Bipin Rawat in New Delhi.
General Rawat, who later assumed the position of the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), died in a chopper crash on Wednesday. According to the AU officials, the meeting with General Rawat in Delhi paved the way for several MoUs in the subsequent months.
Prof G Nageswara Rao, who served as vice-chancellor of the university between 2016 and 2019, took a trip down his memory lane and explained his meeting with General Rawat in New Delhi on July 27, 2018.
“Initially, General Rawat was surprised to know that a delegation from Andhra University was reaching out to the Army and offering academic courses. We then explained to him the credentials of the university and our earlier MoUs with the Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard.
“He said courses like yoga, cyber security, big data and artificial intelligence are in huge demand for Army personnel and agreed to send their officers to the varsity. Consequently, we entered into several MoUs with the Army in the following days,” said Prof Rao.
He added that they started offering graduation certificates to Army personnel who had completed 15 years of service, at the suggestion of General Rawat.
“It was meant to make them more employable in the open market upon their retirement after short service. General Rawat presented me a book on the Indian Army, while we from the university offered him a memento with the university emblem and a shawl,” he recalled.
Following the meeting, Andhra University signed five MoUs with the Army in 2018 for offering various academic programmes. Giving lateral entry into engineering and post-graduation courses for ‘medical board-outs’ (recruits released from the services on medical grounds) is one of the components of the MoUs.
