On May 28-29, 2018, at the Khujand Polytechnic Institute of the Tajik Technical University named after academic M.S.Osimi, (KPITTU) a national working meeting was conducted in order to present the syllabus and of the project activities result. The Participants of the meeting were partner organizations, representatives of manufacturers and processers of Tajikstandart, teachers of universities of Tajikistan, Lithuania, Poland.

In the framework of an open dialogue, participants were given opportunities to discuss three-way interaction between higher education institutions, enterprises and business associations. They also get acquainted with the developed work programs on the introduction of new subjects of study in the curriculum of the pilot universities.

As was noted by the content coordinator of  KPITTU  Dilrabo Komilova, during her presentation: “in the process of developing the syllabus, all the recommendations of European colleagues were taken into consideration . The new items are going be implemented in the current academic year 2018-2019. “Сoncerning the interaction with the direct producers-processers, it was noted that such a connection  ensures quick respond in a timely  and flexible manner to the needs of consumers and the market as a whole. For example, on prescription issues, technological and other. It is also have been planned to compile joint topics for diploma projects for the implementation of ideas directly on the basis of the producer-processer.

Sitora Sherzoda, Deputy Head of the Tajikstandart Agency, mentioned the importance of the project’s cooperation with universities in training students and training of specialists in food safety issues. Also she highlighted, that the Agency “have certified 42 enterprises by HACCP and ISO 22000 standards”. She also mentioned the possibility of including in the project’s implementation phase a number of joint steps to develop curricula and training of Agency’s staff.

Umed Aslanov, HECAFS regional project coordinator said that “there is a difference between the practical and theoretical parts of the knowledge realization”. Noting the problems of interaction with the industrial sector, it was observed that the following recommendations were proposed as the main:  

• definition of a model for monitoring (inspection) the knowledge of graduates of universities with the participation of entrepreneurs, to improve the quality of teaching students to the standards of Global Gap;
• formalize the mechanism of partnership between universities and enterprises for the production and processing of food industry.

For more effective implementation of part of the project in the teaching of students, it was suggested that the teachers of national universities should participate in all the lectures of their European colleagues. Thus, Tajik teachers will be able to get real experience from colleagues from Europe while reading the lecture, and the  students will be able to receive the necessary support from their teachers, in case of difficulties.

Teachers of national universities, within the framework of the meeting, also received the opportunity of individual consultation concerning the implementation of the content of the project.

During the second day of the meeting, the participants got acquainted with the work of experimental farming, which recently introduced the Global Gap standard on a separate experimental subsidiary farm, and visited several dry-processing enterprises in Isfara that introduced HACCP standards to their enterprises.