The German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD (German: Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) is a scholarship program for international students especially from developing countries. It is the largest funding organization in the world for students of developing countries who intend to study in Germany. Ms. Aditi Gosavi, Senior Advisor - Communication and Public Relations of DAAD India along with Mr. Mahmudul Hasan Suman, Regional Officer, DAAD Bangladesh visited Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST) on Thursday, 20^th October 2022. This was a courtesy visit for the purpose of a discussion session between the officials of DAAD and AUST.

DAAD representatives sat for a brief meeting with the Honorable Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Muhammad Fazli Ilahi in his office. Later, the main discussion program held in the seminar room of AUST where Prof. Dr. Muhammad Fazli Ilahi, Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Mohammed Mahbubur Rahman, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Mustafizur Rahman, Treasurer, All Deans of the faculties, All Academic Heads, and Senior Professors from various departments joined the meeting. During the program, Prof. Dr. Tareq Aziz, Head, Dept. of EEE, AUST gave a brief presentation about AUST. Ms. Aditi Gosavi briefed about the offered programs and scopes for receiving DAAD Scholarships. She mentioned that DAAD have a regional collaboration with IIT Bombay regarding the offered scholarship programs focusing the students of Bangladesh. Other than, DAAD also offers students from Bangladesh merit-based scholarships for several MSc and PhD programs and send students to renowned educational institutes of Germany with an opportunity for summer exchange program in Germany.

She mentioned that the DAAD Scholarship committee has received a few Bangladeshi students through their collaboration program in India, and they do not receive many scholarship applicants from Bangladesh. The main reason mentioned is that the DAAD Scholarship has not caught the attention of Bangladeshi students due to the lack of information and insufficient exposure about the program to the students. AUST agreed to help DAAD to dissipate information about its programs and convey their scholarship offers to the students and faculty members. The delegation talked not only about DAAD Scholarships, but also briefed about the possibility of research collaboration with German Universities and German Professors through DAAD grants. Another topic of discussion was students’ interest in transferring credits or short-term semester-based study abroad, programs in German Universities from AUST or from German Universities to AUST.

Finally, the meeting ended with a pledge to strengthen the collaboration between DAAD and AUST in near future.