The University of The Gambia signed Memorandum of Understanding with European Universities in its bid to strengthen and establish collaborations in the pursuit of academic excellence.
The Vice Chancellor, Prof. dr. Faqir Muhammad Anjum, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academics, Prof. Ousman Nyan and University Relations Officer and Ph.D. Student at Vrije University Brussels, Mr. Jimmy Hendry Nzally were the delegates that represented the UTG from 13th- 24th May 2019.
Masaryk University of Czech Republic, Vrije Universiteit Brussels and Erasmus Hoges School of Belgium, Ghent University, Umea and Linnaeus University of Sweden are the Universities the UTG has strengthen and established partnership with to enhance and explore better
opportunities.
The University of the Gambia and Vrije Universiteit Brussels are already enjoying a fruitful cooperation, which includes staff and student exchange programmes, provision of educational laboratory equipment’s to the UTG, research grant and scholarships for UTG students and staff to pursue their Masters and Ph.Ds. at the VUB At the Masaryk, the official signatories of the MoU between the two universities included the UTG Vice Chancellor and Masaryk University vice Rector for Internationalization, with the sole aim of establishing a fortified collaboration. Vice Rector also challenged the delegation to work on engaging with The Gambia government to establish a bilateral cooperation with the Czech government. This will facilitate a lot of development cooperation including capacity building, scholarships, etc. as well as collaborating on a joint Erasmus Mundus proposal.
However, scholarships on specific areas of target (masters/bachelor) will be communicated in due time via its International Relations Office (Violeta Osouchová, Head of International Office). The declaration made by Mr. Jimmy also includes setting up an exchange programme including internships for medical students to visit Masaryk University. Masaryk will explore the proposal to send lecturers to teach at the UTG as they already have professors who teach African studies.
Moreover, for capacity building projects, UTG would need to partner universities including three local institutions, establishment of virtual classroom to support the teaching staff constraints at the UTG through the Masaryk School of Education and also, for UTG students to benefit from
highly trained professors in different fields.
During the partnership meeting with Umea University, The Faculty of Social Sciences of Umea was pleased to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of The Gambia (UTG) School of Arts and Sciences. Umea University is willing and interested to receive UTG Academics to teach for short term and to send academic staff to the UTG. Proposals are also being made to offer scholarship for staff/student exchanges, but they must apply through a central system.
The visit to Linnaeus University was also a success as the UTG delegation was able to sign partnership. Both parties are interested to widen the collaboration which include the health sciences. Linnaeus Vice Rector for Internationalization emphasized the need for internationalization. She remarked that they have applied to be part of the Africa research collaboration and are considering visiting UTG in February 2020.
The tour gave UTG the opportunity to discuss relevant challenges to partner universities. The results of which availed the UTG the opportunities mentioned above.
The next steps would involve following up on these opportunities as well to orient staff/students who will benefiting from such to remained good ambassadors for the sustainability of such collaborations.
