OAU partners with US varsity on research, student exchange programmes

From Lateef Dada, Osogbo

The Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, has partnered with Pennsylvania State University, United States, on research and student exchange programmes.

A three-man team from Pennsylvania State University visited OAU to inspect available facilities for the success of the collaboration.

Led by Professor of Electrical Engineering, Peter Idowu, the team took a tour of the university and expressed delight with the quality and rich depth of the institution, saying it shared similarities with Penn State University.

He said, “The university is seeking to form partnerships and collaborations with universities in West Africa, and when we were scoping out universities, OAU fit into our mission. It is very large, diverse, has a wide range of programmes, and is a comprehensive university like Penn State University.

“We want to partner with as many universities as possible, looking at those who have a similar mission to ours. The goal is to start with one or two universities to look at how to do it and see how fruitful it is.

“OAU stands apart from many other universities because we see an extremely vibrant university with substantial infrastructure and beautiful facilities. We have had a lot of conversations with the Vice-Chancellor and others, and we see that they have great ideas which our university will be happy to take back in our report,” Idowu said.

Speaking on behalf of the Vice-Chancellor, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academics, Professor Omobola Babalola, said the partnership was aimed at expanding the frontiers of teaching and learning.

She described the partnership programme as a win-win situation for the two schools, saying, “We have a team from Penn State University visiting OAU. We have had meetings with stakeholders in the university, looking at areas of collaboration in terms of staff and student exchange, research, and grant proposal writing.

“We will have a kind of programme, and the leader of the team, Professor Idowu, mentioned a 3+1 programme, where if you have a programme running for four years, the students could spend three years in Nigeria and the last year in the United States of America at Penn State University,” Babalola added.

Also, OAU’s Executive Director of the Center for Research, Professor Ebunoluwa Adejuyigbe, said the partnership would benefit not just OAU but Nigeria as a whole, as it would enable the transfer of knowledge from the developed world to Africa via Nigeria and propel the country towards becoming a developed nation through research.

“Research is very key to every aspect of life, to moving the country forward, particularly at this time when we have Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning. These are things we want to bring in from the developed world to the South. We also have things that we will be exposing them to, so that the collaboration will be beneficial to both OAU and Penn State University,” Adejuyigbe said.