To enhance professionalism, secure varsity revenue: UBA Cameroon, University of Maroua sign partnership.

The Managing Director of UBA Cameroon, Jude Anele, and the Rector of the University of Maroua, Prof Idrissou Alioum, signed the partnership agreement on Friday July 12. This was at the bank's headquarters in Douala. 

The deal initiates future institutional collaboration between both establishments, for a period of three years. 

The MoU was signed in the presence of close collaborators of the Managing Director of UBA Cameroon, as well as those of the Rector of the University of Maroua.   

Through the partnership, UBA Cameroon continues to reaffirm its commitment to working with higher institutions of learning across the country. 

This has been proven over the years with existing partnerships with the Universities of Douala, Yaounde II, Buea and Bamenda. 

These state universities have paved the way for fruitful partnerships of UBA Cameroon with public and private higher institutions of learning across the country.

UBA committed to seeing Africa emerge through youth 

The Managing Director of UBA Cameroon, Jude Anele, in his opening remarks during the event to sign the MoU, reiterated the institution's stance to see Africa emerge through strength of its youth. Going by Anele, the university system is essential to Africa's development. 

“As a banking group, we are looking for ways to collaborate and support institutions such as the University of Maroua, in order to bring out the best among young Africans and entrust them with the future of Africa," he said. 

Anele said the future of Africa will depend on the quality of education given to young people.

"Because our continent will soon be in the hands of these young people that we are training today in universities, the issue is how we can add value to them," he noted.

In accordance with its provisions, the agreement will allow UBA to offer students internship programmes, so that they can gain work experience while they are still undergoing academic training. The MoU also leaves room for the entrepreneurship programmes   

The idea is to instill students to think more like entrepreneurs or business owners rather than looking at who will employ them upon graduation. 

"We also want to provide faculties with loans and payment systems, help the school in securing revenue, finance research projects, infrastructural development at the university, amongst others,” Anele said.

On the other hand, the University of Maroua will provide tailored remedial courses for capacity building of UBA employees and executives within the various faculties. 

The UBA Cameroon boss reiterated the bank’s leadership zeal to see human resources developed in Cameroon and Africa.

Enter University of Maroua Rector

On his part, the Rector of the University of Maroua, Prof ldrissou Alioum, stressed that it was appropriate to sign the MoU in order to benefit from the experience and expertise of UBA Cameroon.

He thanked the administration of the bank for choosing to extend corporate collaborations with the university. Prof ldrissou said he has seen what UBA Cameroon has done with other universities and was optimistic that the partnership with the University of Maroua will bear positive fruits. 

It should be noted that the University of Maroua, created some 16 years ago, has emerged to become the 3rd largest state university in the country just after the Universities of Yaoundé I and that of Douala.

For the 2023/2024 academic year, it registered nearly 40,000 students, including 8,000 international students, thus making the citadel a stronghold in terms of internationalisation of higher education.

Located in Maroua, the capital of the Far North Region, the University of Maroua also prides itself to be the largest employer in the region, having created 1,500 direct and indirect jobs, including a cream of 700 permanent lecturers and 500 support staff.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3171 of Wednesday July 17, 2024