New higher education and research facilities for south

Senegal has announced that a new human and social sciences education and research unit will open next year in Kolda in the south. A centre for research and experimentation has also just opened in the region – raising the number of such centres countrywide from eight in 2012 to 23 now.

The news was broken by Minister for Higher Education and Research Mary Teuw Niane, who was chairing a regional development committee in Kolda.

He said the unit, which is being transferred from Assane Seck University, would train students for careers in psychology, with the support of the Société Française de Psychologie, reported Koldanews.

The minister added that it was President Macky Sall’s decision “to make Kolda Senegal’s training centre in psychology”.

While in the region, Niane also inaugurated a new centre for research and experimentation, or CRE, in the department of Médina Yoro Foula, reported Koldanews.

The centre, built at a cost of FCFA100 million (US$173,900), would specialise in disciplines including renewable energies, computer sciences, food processing, saponification and preparation of bleach.

During the regional development meeting Niane said that in 2012 there had been only eight CREs, but thanks to Sall there were now 23, reported the Agence de Presse Sénégalaise, or APS.

Similarly, he said the plan was to increase the number of open digital areas to a total of 14. These give lecturers, researchers and students free access to online distance education and resources, within a network organised by the Virtual University of Senegal.

A tertiary Islamic school

Meanwhile the director of the Islamic Institute of Dakar, El Hadji Thierno Kâ, raised the possibility of trying “to create a public higher education school offering Islamic education to Arabists after their Baccalauréat”, the school-leaving examination that gives access to higher education, reported APS.

Kâ was speaking during a conference in Djamal commemorating Sérigne El Hadji Abdoulaye Cissé, founder of the religious city. He said that since 1973 the Islamic Institute of Dakar had given Islamic education to upper secondary school students that culminated in their Baccalauréat.

“Unfortunately, they have difficulty following studies in higher education. Some give up, others who have the means pursue their studies in Islamic universities abroad,” APS quoted him as saying.

“That’s why it would be good if we could provide a public Islamic university or tertiary school in our country to help our Arabic-speaking students in their higher education studies,” he said.

* This article is drawn from local media. University World News cannot vouch for the accuracy of the original reports.