UNIBEN to collaborate with Hull University on Enviromental Studies

The University of Benin has signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Hull in the United Kingdom over academic matters. The deal was sealed recently when the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Emmanuel Nwanze led a team of three to the University on invitation.

According to Dr. Lawrence Ezemonye, a member of the team who spoke to The Guardian in Benin last Tuesday, the UK institution invited the Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin to discuss partnership and collaboration maters. “The visit basically was to strike a collaboration between the two universities in the areas of academic, student and staff exchange programmes,” Ezemonye explained. “The deal provides for part of our students to conclude their programmes in Hull and some of their students will also come to have the African experience. “We also discussed the possibility of linkages in the various faculties looking at the available capability.

The discussion in the Business school preceded a tour of the facility. From there we moved to the Faculty of Sciences where we were received by the Dean of the faculty. We looked at the Niger Delta perspective, and how we can collaborate with the faculty of environmental sciences and science to avert some of the environmental problem in the Niger Delta. “We also discussed the waste management problem of Nigeria, how we can produce prototype intervention technique, basic ones that can help us solve our problem and of course, they provided information on their capabilities from which we can choose areas of linkage. We also went beyond that to discuss student exchange programmes and they were thrilled.

The pre degree students will visit in their final year to look at the final areas of their project, the MSc students will have three to six months interaction, and the Ph.d students will have one year exposure in Hull. For staff exchange, the area of our staff visiting Hull to undertake short term courses will be explored and potentials abound for our colleagues to cross over to Hull to look at new techniques in the areas of science and environmental studies. Again, because laboratory facilities have been our problem here not the technique per se, we also talked about a laboratory linkage with them, whereby, they will come to Nigeria and establish state of the art facilities. The discussions were so fruitful to the point that the Vice Chancellor now invited them to be part of our convocation ceremony in November.