7th Meeting of Education Ministers of SCO Member States held in Astana, Kazakhstan
The seventh meeting of education ministers of member states of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was held in Astana, capital city of Kazakhstan. The meeting was organised with assistance of Kazakhstan Government and its Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Rector’s Office of University of SCO (USCO).
Key Facts
Participants in the meeting included education ministers from India, Kazakhsta, China, Kyrgyzisthan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India was represented by Minister of State (MoS) Human Resource Development Satyapal Singh. During the meeting, heads of delegations focused on ensuring implementation of agreements reached in June 2018 at Qingdao SCO Heads of State Council summit, with aim of further expanding bilateral and multilateral cooperation as regards exchanges of lecturers and students, joint research projects, academic visits, language studies, professional education and youth exchanges.
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
SCO is Eurasian economic, political and security organisation headquartered in Beijing, China. The declaration on establishment of SCO was singed in Shanghai (China) in June 2001 by six founding states – Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The main objective of SCO is military cooperation between members. It also works towards intelligence-sharing, counter-terrorism operations in Central Asia. It is primarily centred on its member nations’ Central Asian security-related concerns, often describing main threats it confronts as being terrorism, separatism and extremism.
The full members of the organization are China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan were granted SCO membership in June 2017. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia currently enjoy observer status of SCO. Sri Lanka, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal are dialogue partners of SCO.
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Month: Current Affairs - October, 2018