… As announces JAMB offering 500 Gambia students adminstration to Nigerian universities
By Joy Odor
The Gambian Minister of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, Professor Pierre Gomez has seek for the assistant of the Nigeria National Universities Commission (NUC) for postgraduate scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programmes for it’s students.
Making the demand during a courtesy visit to the Acting Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Chris Maiyaki in an interview with newsmen, on Monday in Abuja, Gomez also asked for support in the area of capacity building, saying they still have developmental issues and strongly believed that higher education would change their situation.
According to the Gambia Minister, education liberates individual, affirming that they need to have functional education, “one thing is to have your Masters and PhDs but then the other thing is for you to be able to solve societal problems” Gomez said.
He commended Nigerians for laying the foundation of university education in Gambia, maintaining that most of the principal officers, including the Vice Chancellor in the first university in the country were Nigerians.
Gomez also ranked the quality of Nigerian universities, adding that Gambians who had earlier undergone postgraduate programmes in Nigerian universities under the World Bank-sponsored African Centre of Excellence (ACE) are now playing strategic roles in the country.
“Because of the relationship we have between Banjul and Abuja, we are here to seek support for scholarships at 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 PhDs but then the other thing is for you to be able to solve societal problems,” Gomez noted.
In his address, the Acting Executive Secretary of NUC, Chris Maiyaki informed that Nigeria has also opened up its higher education space to attract major players across the globe through the transactional education guidelines put in place by NUC.
Maiyaki announces that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has come up with a plan that will attract about 500 students from Gambia to Nigerian universities and called for exploration of the opportunity.
He expressed delight that the visit came on the heels of the recent launch of Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS) in the Nigerian University System.
“Our new curriculum has just been launched and the visit is taking place at a time Nigeria re-engineered its curriculum. CCMAS is revolutionary and dynamic.
” 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 percent.
”If you take electricity supply, Nigeria is not self-sufficient but we provide electricity to Niger Republic, that is our deliberate friendly stance from Independence.
”We have decided to open up Nigerian higher education space so that we can invite players, genuine players. We are open to very well meaning interventions, foreign universities are at liberty to come” Maiyaki stressed.
On the request for postgraduate scholarships, NUC Acting Executive Secretary directed the Gambian Minister to send a formal proposal on the specific programmes and universities of choice for NUC to process the request.
He assured the Minister of NUC support, saying Nigeria would not relent in playing a big brother’s role despite having its own challenges.
According to him, NUC is ready to encourage joint research between scholars in Nigeria and those in Gambia to address shared problems.
