Friday, July 27, 2007

Iranian University to Open in Syria

This just came in from Farid who seems to be the guy who sends us more stuff than anyone else on Syria:

Washington DC, July 27, 2007/RPS Staff/ -- During an interview today with Mehar, an Iran daily, Arsalan Baqeri, Deputy Minister of Science, Research and Technology for international affairs, announced the establishment of Iranian Farabi University in Syria.

In the interview Baqeri confirmed that the Iranian Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mohammad Zahedi finalized, during a recent visit to Syria, the establishment of Farabi University, which is an international branch of Tarbiat Modarres University. He also confirmed that Syria and Iran pledged to set up a new 16-member committee to conduct research in biotechnology and laser.

Tarbiat Modares University (TMU) was founded in 1982 as a graduate university specializing in biotechnology. It is the only university in Iran which offers a master program for Medical Biotechnology and only 6-9 students are admitted annually according to their performance in National Graduate Studies Entrance Exam. The university was initially in charge of training (tarbiat) university lecturers (modarres) to eradicate the era of the Shah of Iran. It selected its students after a rigorous "ideological" screening process.

It is expected that about 150 Iranian graduate students will eventually move to Syria to cooperate with Syrian students on biotechnology matters.

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