Patna, June 14 (IANS): President Pranab Mukherjee will attend the convocation ceremony where degrees will be awarded to the first batch of students at Nalanda University in August. He will also launch the ground breaking ceremony for construction to start at the campus site, a university official said on Tuesday.

"Mukherjee will confer degrees to the first batch of students at the convocation ceremony to be held on August 27, 2016," the official said.

According to officials, these students had joined the two inaugural schools -- The School of Ecology and Environment Studies and the School of Historical Studies in the two year Masters programme.

The university will be admitting a new batch of students in August and will also start the new school -- the School of Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative Religions.

Located in the Buddhist pilgrim town of Rajgir in Nalanda district, the university currently has two functional divisions: the School of Historical Studies and the School of Environment and Ecological Studies.

It started its first academic session in September 2014 in a makeshift campus.

The fully-residential university will eventually have seven schools for postgraduate and doctoral students, offering courses in science, philosophy and spirituality and social sciences.

The university is an initiative of India and East Asian countries.