By Ochieng' Ogodo, Journalist-Kenya
[NAIROBI] African universities need to forge closer linkages with institutions of higher learning in Hong Kong for mutual academic benefits.
According to Professor Dennis Lo, President of Hong Academy of Sciences, there is the need to pick approaches suitable to institutions and centers of higher learning that get involved in collaborations.
Lo who is also an associate dean for research at the Faculty of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, says that such collaborations could be realized in areas such as students exchange programmes and joint research and development activities.
“That is a reasonable situation and in Hong Kong there is a studentship scheme which encourages students from abroad to join us. For instance, in my laboratory I have a student from Pakistan and I don’t see any reason why we would not extend that to our Africa colleagues,” said Lo.
According to Lo, it is also important to explore research collaborations between universities to allow access to the best scientific and engineering technologies in specific domains.
“With technology, it becomes cheaper as it goes. For instance, like in my area of DNA sequencing computers processes [using] slots and every eighteen months the processing power doubles at the same cost and actually DNA sequencing is faster than more slot for many years."
#Africa #HigherEducation #Collaboration #HongKong
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