Gom Mirian
The Gambian government will deepen its partnership with Nigeria to improve the country’s higher education system, its Minister of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, Prof. Pierre Gomez, has said.
He made this disclosure during his visit to the Nigerian capital city of Abuja on Monday.
The Minister met with the Acting Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Chris Maiyaki, to explore opportunities for collaboration and exchange in the field of education.
During the meeting, Gomez emphasised the importance of maintaining strong bilateral relations with Nigeria to leverage the country’s educational advancements, particularly in the areas of research, innovation, curricular development and capacity building.
He also commended the NUC for regulating the higher education sector in Nigeria and for setting standards that have made universities competitive on the global stage.
Stating his purpose for the visit, he said: “Because of the relationship we have between Banjul and Abuja, we are here to seek support for scholarships at the postgraduate level in different areas, especially in STEM, and to know whether the TVET are under your purview, because this is something we want to see in getting support in that area, and also in capacity building.
“As you know, education liberates the individual. We want to have functional education, one thing is to have your Masters and Ph.Ds, but then the other thing is for you to able to solve societal problems,” Gomez posited.
In his remarks, Maiyaki expressed NUC’s willingness to make extra efforts to work with the Gambian government and higher education sector towards achieving common goals.
“Even though we don’t have enough access; every year we have about 2 million Nigerian kids (students) applying to universities and we barely meet up to 50 per cent. If you take electricity supply, Nigeria is not self-sufficient but we provide electricity to the Niger Republic, that is our deliberate friendly stance from independence,” the NUC boss said.
