The French Embassy in Ghana in a joint partnership with the Vice Chancellors’ Ghana (VCG) association signed a Memorandum of Understanding to gain mutual benefits in the higher educational system of both Ghana and France.

The MoU set forth provisions that will serve as a foundation for additional specific bilateral agreements with member universities to formalize the deepening relationship between the two partners.

At a short ceremony held at the Residence of France on Tuesday, June 5, 2018, the agreement was signed by the French Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Francois Pujolas and VCG Chairman, Professor Gabriel Ayum Teye who doubles as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Development Studies.

This MoU, being the first of its kind in the sub-Saharan Africa, is expected to strengthen Ghana's state universities to improve higher education and research, facilitate the establishment of supplementary bilateral agreements with member universities, facilitate academic exchanges between France and Ghana and promote academic knowledge pooling and sharing.

Additionally, it is to ease access to international higher education networks in order to allow VCG member universities tap into complementary resources available within the Francophonie sphere; improve the French language skills of Ghana's burgeoning specialised human resources to allow them integrate within the predominantly Francophone ECOWAS neighbourhood as well as support VCG member universities in their efforts to promote graduate bilingualism in French and English.



Speaking at the event, French Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Francois Pujolas and VCG Chairman stressed that the signing of the framework agreement signified another building block in the productive relationship between VCG and the French embassy which dates back about 10 years.

In an interview with www.ghanaweb.com Francois Pujolas said, “In our partnership, we are not looking at the very short term. We are investing in the future. Investing in the future means finding ways for the youth to develop, exchange with the students in France as well to prepare for the future.”

He explained that this will give better opportunities to the youth in Africa, in particular since such an initiative, he reiterated, will increase academic operation, student mobility, as well as heighten the interest in learning the French language among students.



To him, this will position the youth to secure a better future for themselves in the Ghanaian economy.

On the hand, Prof Gabriel Ayum Teye noted at the ceremony that although Ghana is experiencing “higher explosion of institutions”, the country is “struggling” to gain recognition internationally as centers of excellence.

However, he was confident that “…this relationship with French universities is another way to make ourselves visible on the global market.”



Moving forward, Prof Teye hinted that the agreement will urge various higher educational institutions to work on the quality of staff, quality of students, international collaboration and “all that will make our institutions very recognized.”