The new Ambassador of Spain to Nigeria, Juan Ignacio Sell, paid a courtesy call on the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatoyin T. Ogundipe, FAS on Monday, March 14, 2022 at his office on the 11th Floor.
The Ambassador was in the University to discuss collaborative opportunities between Spain and University of Lagos and by extension, Nigeria. He revealed that the embassy is working on inviting TETFund to Spain to observe new developments in the areas of science, innovation, business, etc.
He also mentioned that the Spanish programme for women – Mujeres por Africa, a programme which will help train 25 lecturers and professors in leadership has been approved for the University of Lagos and it will start in the new session.
Furthermore, he disclosed that the Spanish Embassy intends to promote the Spanish language in Nigeria starting from the universities. This would be done by bringing in a professor from Spain who would teach at the University for a while. He threw the opportunity open to the University of Lagos and hoped that the University would key into it.
Lastly, he mentioned that the embassy would like to explore further the Erasmus+ programme as well as make Lagos a partner of choice of Spain.
The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatoyin T. Ogundipe, FAS represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Oluwole Familoni assured that the University is up to the task and will surely meet all the requirements for the Mojeres por Africa programme. He spoke about the University and told him that the University has a Department of European Languages offering French, Russian, German Languages and Chinese. He expressed delight at the thought of offering a Spanish programme, although he noted that several steps and procedures need to be taken as well as permission gotten from NUC. He did point out that there might be a need to have more than one person to teach. He assured that accommodation is available for Spaniards sent to the University to take such courses.
He also disclosed that the University is research-oriented and looks forward to more collaborations with Spain.
