ZAMBIA – Zambia is set to welcome a specialised agriculture university, to be constructed by the Director of an Indian company Banyan Impex Private Limited, J.M. Patel.
This was revealed by Zambia’s High Commissioner to India, Judith Kapijimpanga who indicated the institution will be built at an initial cost of US$1 million.
According to reports by Lusaka Times, Mr. Patel is scheduled to travel to Zambia on March 15, 2021 with a view of starting the registration process of the investment.
The planned institution will join Texila American University Lusaka, which has roots from India, catering to the Zambian students locally, who in the past travelled in droves to the Asian country in pursuit of education.
Meanwhile, Nigeria recently inaugurated the country’s first Sugar Institute to facilitate knowledge sharing within the sector.
Also, the institution is aimed to promote productivity which will enable it attain self-sufficiency in production of the commodity and assist the sustenance of the 2017 Nigeria Sugar Master Plan (NSMP).
The development of the institution was undertaken in collaboration with the government of India after the National Sugar Institute of India and the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) last year, to benefit from India’s expertise.
The Nigeria Sugar Institute (NSI), located at Kwara state, will develop human resource to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of the country’s sugarcane industry by offering regular refresher technical and management courses for staff of sugar companies as well as fresh graduates desiring to make a career in the sector.
Still in West Africa, a consortium of Swiss companies namely Nestlé, ABB, Barry Callebaut, LafargeHolcim and Bühler partnered with one of the world’s leading universities, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) to launch a new master’s program in sub-Saharan Africa.
The ‘ETH Masters in Africa – Engineering for Development’ is a three-year program, developed in close collaboration with Ashesi University in Ghana.
ETH Zurich lecturers will work on site with Ashesi University’s professors as well as with industrial partners to teach the students from Ghana.
The educational content will be based on both existing ETH Zurich courses and the current needs of the industry sector in sub-Saharan Africa.
The initiative was triggered by the fact that half of the global population is under 30 years old, and almost half of that group are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Despite having a large population being of productive age, youth employment is a challenge that governments are tackling through increased access to education.
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