Skip to main content

Upland Project holds last round of monitoring visits

  • 9 June 2016

Dr. Maria Cristeta Cuaresma with the IDRC-SEARCA scholars in KKU (left) and CMU (right).

THAILAND – As the academic year comes to a close, the Upland Agriculture Fellowships, a collaborative project by SEARCA and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, visited Khon Kaen University (KKU), Kasetsart University (KU), and Chiang Mai University (CMU) on 16-18 May 2016. The coordination and monitoring visit was led by its project leader, Dr. Maria Cristeta N. Cuaresma, SEARCA’s Program Head for Graduate Education and Institutional Development.

Meeting with the university coordinators, Dr. Cuaresma inquired about the scholars’ academic progress and discussed other scholarship-related concerns. Dr. Cuaresma also took the opportunity to extend her appreciation to the university coordinators for hosting the project’s scholars and expressed her hope for further collaborations in the future.

In a separate meeting with the scholars, Dr. Cuaresma introduced some of the Center’s grants and trainings and encouraged the scholars to complete their degrees on time as the project is nearing its completion. She also urged the scholars to connect with and be active in their respective country alumni associations once they graduate. Currently, the project has five ongoing scholars at CMU, eight at KKU, and one at KU. The project also has 12 ongoing scholars at the University of the Philippines Los Baños.

The coordinating visit is a core activity of the IDRC project that serves as a proactive feedback mechanism between and among the scholars, university coordinators, and SEARCA. The five-year fellowship project, which awarded 53 Master’s degree scholarships to nationals of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam, and Myanmar is expected to wrap-up in February 2017. (Eriza C. Asilo)