In an effort to ensure that Nigerian students who were displaced by the war in Ukraine return to class, a leading Ukrainian institution, V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, founded in 1804, has struck a partnership agreement with Igbinedion University Okada, a leading private university.
According to a statement released on Wednesday by Dr. Cliff Ogbede, the Ukrainian university's representative in Nigeria, the collaboration would allow students who were uprooted by the conflict in their home country of Ukraine to resume their academic studies on the campus of Igbinedion University as part of a joint educational programme in accordance with the transnational educational standards of the Nigerian National Universities Commission (NUC).
In accordance with the directives of the Nigerian National Universities Commission, the joint transnational educational programme that the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine recommended permits Ukrainian academic institutions to continue online adaptation of study in addition to a joint educational programme with highly regarded foreign partner institutions.
In this new partnership, the two Universities will work together to develop educational activities, increase access to all levels and types of high-quality higher education, and create educational programmes and courses based on recommendations from UNESCO. They will also implement the right to academic mobility, which adheres to the fundamental principles of the Bologna declaration.
The top-ranked Ukrainian V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University's undergraduate and graduate students would be able to continue their academic programmes uninterrupted in addition to the current distance learning mode thanks to the joint transnational educational programme, according to Ogbede. A similar model is used, in particular, for the organisation of academic cooperation with universities in Turkey and other countries.
Along with these programmes, he claimed that the two Universities would broaden their collaboration by fostering high-quality intercultural communication, creating global alliances for the commercialization of educational products, promoting the growth of the knowledge economy, and enlarging the range of academic programmes, disciplines, and teaching experiences at both institutions.
“Igbinedion University, which championed the higher education revolution in Nigeria through innovation, entrepreneurship, bespoke and research in tandem with its motto of knowledge & excellence,” he said.