The Government of India and the Republic of Korea conducted signing of Exchange of Notes for the Technical Cooperation Project titled ‘Strengthening Vocational Education and Training in Mechatronics in India’, on 20th January 2025, in New Delhi. The project will be implemented in collaboration with Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) of Government of Republic of Korea. This is the first project being implemented with assistance of KOICA in India.

The signees were Ms. Manisha Sinha, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, for Government of India and H.E. Mr. Lee Seong-ho, Ambassador of Republic of Korea to India for the for the Republic of Korea.

The Project, which spans over two years, aims to establish a basis of vocational education and training in mechatronics in India and will be implemented by NCERT at the Regional Institute of Education (RIE), Bhopal, where it will help build environment to pilot education in mechatronics by preparing curriculum, textbooks, teacher’s manual and equipment. The project will help build capacity of teachers in mechatronics while also facilitating networking between industry and RIE, Bhopal.

Republic of Korea was designated as India’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) partner for development cooperation in October, 2016. The bilateral relationship between the two countries was upgraded to ‘Special Strategic Partnership’ in the year 2015. Signing of the exchange of notes for the NCERT project will further consolidate and strengthen the Special Strategic Partnership between India and the Republic of Korea.

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NB/KMN

Exchange of Notes establishes Korea supported technical cooperation to strengthen vocational mechatronics education in India through NCERT implementation. An Exchange of Notes formalised a bilateral technical cooperation project with KOICA, under which NCERT at RIE Bhopal will implement a two year programme to pilot mechatronics vocational education by preparing curriculum, textbooks and teacher manuals, procuring equipment, building teacher capacity and facilitating industry RIE networking.