The re­new­al of a part­ner­ship be­tween the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) is ex­pect­ed to cre­ate new op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­search, ed­u­ca­tion and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment cen­tred on In­di­an cul­ture.

The two or­gan­i­sa­tions on Wednes­day re­newed their Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at UTT’s Ch­agua­nas cam­pus, ex­tend­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion that be­gan three years ago.

Speak­ing at the event, Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad said Trinidad and To­ba­go could reap greater eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits by bet­ter man­ag­ing and mar­ket­ing el­e­ments of In­di­an cul­ture.

He point­ed to the man­u­fac­ture, re­pair and de­vel­op­ment of In­di­an mu­si­cal in­stru­ments as one area with strong busi­ness po­ten­tial.

“You can start small busi­ness­es with that,” Per­sad said, adding that lo­cal­ly made in­stru­ments and re­lat­ed prod­ucts could be ex­port­ed to the In­di­an di­as­po­ra through­out the West­ern Hemi­sphere.

The min­is­ter al­so called for greater in­no­va­tion in the pro­duc­tion of In­di­an cui­sine, say­ing there was a need to de­vel­op ma­chin­ery ca­pa­ble of au­tomat­ing the prepa­ra­tion of tra­di­tion­al foods.

He said most of the cater­ing equip­ment avail­able is de­signed for West­ern cui­sine.

Per­sad al­so an­nounced plans to col­lab­o­rate with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to al­low grad­u­ates of UTT’s mu­sic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme to teach in schools as an in­ter­im mea­sure while they pur­sue high­er qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

He said the ini­tia­tive would help schools make use of In­di­an mu­si­cal in­stru­ments that are cur­rent­ly sit­ting idle.

The min­is­ter al­so ad­dressed the fu­ture of UTT’s once-pro­mot­ed Ram­leela In­sti­tute, say­ing it had not been re­moved from the uni­ver­si­ty’s port­fo­lio but re­mained on hia­tus.

“We need to get it run­ning and re­vive it,” Per­sad said.

The MOU be­tween UTT and the NCIC fa­cil­i­tates joint re­search, the pro­duc­tion of books and record­ings, and col­lab­o­ra­tion on re­search and de­vel­op­ment projects.

NCIC pres­i­dent Dr Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo said the re­newed agree­ment would strength­en col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two in­sti­tu­tions while ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents and com­mu­ni­ties.

“Through this MOU, both UTT and NCIC stand to ben­e­fit from work­ing to­geth­er more in­ten­tion­al­ly and more broad­ly,” Man­ga­roo said.

He said the part­ner­ship would pro­mote cul­tur­al lit­er­a­cy, strength­en aca­d­e­m­ic and com­mu­ni­ty link­ages, and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents, young peo­ple and the wider com­mu­ni­ty to en­gage with In­di­an her­itage in in­formed, re­spect­ful and for­ward-look­ing ways.

Man­ga­roo added that the agree­ment would al­so con­tribute to build­ing stronger com­mu­ni­ties by en­cour­ag­ing a deep­er un­der­stand­ing of her­itage, cel­e­brat­ing di­ver­si­ty through ed­u­ca­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion, and equip­ping young peo­ple with the skills and con­fi­dence to con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.