On Friday 17th November, 2017, a delegation from China led by Professor Li Ming – Director, International Centre for Higher Education, Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding between Makerere University and UNESCO-ICHEI. In the presence of several members of Makerere University Management, the Vice Chancellor Professor Barnabas Nawangwe signed on behalf of Makerere University. The MoU signing ceremony took place in the Council Room. 

Professor Ming  gave a brief background of UNESCO-ICHEI  and informed the members of management present that early 2017, UNESCO-ICHEI held the “Africa Higher Education Innovation Development and Project Cooperation Seminar” at the Southern University of Science and Technology, located in Shenzhen, China. The seminar was attended by several top-level experts, including Mr. DU Yue, Secretary-General of the National Commission for UNESCO, Professor WANG Libing, Director of the Department of Education Innovation and Skills Development at the UNESCO Asia Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, and other experts from the University of Hong Kong, Zhejiang University, China Development Institute, and Shenzhen Metro Group.
Participants at the seminar had come together to discuss their practices and experiences with innovation and development in higher education and Africa. The Secretary-General DU Yue was optimistic that the Centre would continue to improve the capacity of information generation and also fulfill the role among UNESCO Category II Centres of “becoming a laboratory of ideas, leading the international agenda, promoting international cooperation, and influencing national policies.” ICHEI will continue to raise the bar for information management, communication, and leadership capacity, all of which play an important role in global education governance.

Two short presentations were made for UNESCO-INCHEI and Southern University of Science and Technology respectively. UNESCO and SUSTech had travelled extensively in Africa with the aim of developing and implementing information technologies for higher educational institutions. UNESCO-ICHEI had visited Makerere University with the goal of establishing a cooperation between the three entities. Identified areas of cooperation were; joint research programme(s) on higher education and ICT; information sharing and mutual support on international conferences and academic fora; exchange of international students; exchange of academic staff between SUSTech and Makerere University; exploration of university-enterprise cooperation (potential cooperation between UNESCO-ICHEI, Makerere University and industries, including but not limited to Huawei, Weidong Cloud Education and on-line education, etc). Professors will be invited from Makerere University to attend seminars at UNESCO-ICHEI and vice versa.
Professor Li Ming was accompanied by Professor Andrew Zhao, Deputy Director, Higher Education Research Centre at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), who is also a Senior Expert at UNESCO-ICHEI. Other delegates were Mr Wang Min, a Senior Consultant of Industry-University Cooperation at UNESCO-ICHEI, Ms BI Xiaohan, Programme Officer and Ms LI Xue a Programme Officer. Others hailed from Technology Companies in China.

The Vice Chancellor Professor Barnabas Nawangwe welcomed the visitors and informed them that Makerere University will be celebrating 100 years in the next five years. As a leading research university on the continent, Makerere welcomes researchers from China and will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding with China University of Petroleum (CUP) to tap in training of experts in the lucrative oil industry.

We are eagerly looking forward to working with UNESCO-ICHEI and having a strong collaboration in the field of ICT and innovation in education.

Written By
Martha Muwanguzi
International Office