Macron’s visit produces a range of HE agreements

France and Senegal have signed three agreements supporting higher education and research during the visit to Dakar of the French delegation headed by President Emmanuel Macron for this month’s Global Partnership for Education conference.

Another partnership announced during the conference was between France’s National Distance Education Centre (CNED) and telecoms operator Orange, to improve access to educational content on smartphones in Africa.

The first Senegal-France agreement was a letter of intent between the Senegalese ministry of higher education, research and innovation and the French Arial Industries, for the establishment of a centre for production, assembly, integration and testing of satellites, reported Le Soleil of Dakar.

The second was between the business school Sup de Co in Dakar and the French retail company Auchan, which will collaborate on introducing professionally oriented degrees. Le Soleil reported that Jules Lafont, deputy director general of the company, said that Auchan Senegal had created more than 1,000 jobs for young Senegalese in three years, and with the new agreement Auchan would add another 2,000 jobs in the next two years.

The third accord was a framework agreement for cooperation between the two countries’ higher education ministries, reported Le Soleil.

According to Sud Quotidien of Dakar, Senegal and France were planning to set up a joint strategic commission to relocate French universities’ courses in Senegal and to increase the number of French students in Senegal. Another project was the possible establishment of a major Franco-Senegalese campus in the new town of Diamniadio.

Another partnership announced during the Dakar conference was between the CNED, France’s National Centre of Distance Education, and the French telecoms operator Orange, which will aim to improve access by smartphone to quality educational material from international universities for French-speaking students in 19 African countries where it operates.

A media release from Orange said the contents of the CNED would be distributed in French in e-book format, and could then be downloaded onto smartphones to be read on any screen size and even offline.

“As well as the CNED, other partners will be able to offer educational content to Orange customers, notably French online universities, French-speaking universities and African universities which already produce their own educational digital resources,” said Orange. – Compiled by Jane Marshall

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