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Workshop
highlights role of higher institutions as centers for new
scientific ideas |
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ADDIS
ABEBA(July 10,2008) -
It is expected of higher educational institutions to be the centers
where new scientific ideas are generated, apart from their responsibilities
to produce qualified man power necessary for nation building efforts,
State Minister of Education, Wendwossen Kiflu observed on Tuesday.
He said these institutions must also discharge responsibilities as
centers where important studies and basic and applied researches are
conducted.
The state minister was speaking at a regional consultative meeting
of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group States (ACP) which focused
on the role of higher educational institutions in development endeavors
and the link they need to create between and amongst themselves.
The two-day consultative meeting held at Ghion Hotel under the theme
of "Higher Education and sustainable Development: the contribution
of ACP-EU EDULINK Program aimed to address two major issues: the possible
contributions of EDULINK projects to sustainable development in the
ACP regions; and steps towards the 'inducing' agenda: Challenges and
Responsibilities in Higher Education.
Noting that the scope as well as distribution of the provision of
education was limited in some African, Caribbean and pacific countries,
the state minister highlighted the need to work as, he said, education
was the driving force for social and economic development of a country.
"The difference in global economic progress emanates from an
adequate provision of education in terms of human capital development
on the one hand and insufficient access towards it on the other,"
Wondwossen said.
"In order to balance the inequitable distribution of this resource,
countries should attach special importance to education and training,"
he added.
ACP has accomplished various effective tasks towards promoting the
social and economic development of countries in Africa, Caribbean
and Pacific in the last few years.
Ethiopia is one of the founder member countries of ACP, he added.
According to information made available for media at the workshop,
the overall objective of EDULINKS' is to foster capacity building
and regional integration in the field of higher education through
institutional net working and to support a quality higher education
system relevant to the needs of the labor market, and consistent with
the socio-economic development priorities of ACP states.
EDULINK is the first ACP-EU cooperation programme in higher education.
It is open to all countries of African, Caribbean and pacific Group
States (ACP) and the 15 European Union member states that are signatories
to the 9th European development fund, press material notes.
EDULINK is a program of ACP secretariat and EU to improve the effectiveness
and the impact of cooperation between the states of African, Caribbean
and pacific Group States (CAP) and the European Union (EU) in the
field of higher education. |
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