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The Ensign Global College at Kpong in the Eastern Region and the Tulane University located in New Orleans in the United States of America have begun engagements on entering into a strategic partnership aimed at equipping students and faculties with hands-on, real-world experience.
The event held at Ensign Global University was attended by leadership from both institutions, along with faculty members, marking a pivotal step toward reaching a Memorandum of Understanding and collaboration between the two prestigious institutions.
The MoU signed at the end of the meeting will ultimately see strike a formal partnership designed towards fostering various activities between the two entities including student and faculty exchange programs, enhance joint research projects, teaching, and the development of tailored educational programs.
The partnership is also expected to facilitate knowledge sharing, pool resources, and expertise, and offer global learning experiences leading to more impactful research outcomes.
Speaking in an interview after the engagement, Dr. Stephen Manortey, Head of Academic Programs at Ensign Global University noted that the partnership would offer mutual benefit between the two institutions and present Ensign with the opportunity to tap into and learn from the experiences of its older colleague Tulane University.
“This is an opportunity for us as academic institutions to work together and learn from each other,” said Dr. Manortey. “Alongside, we’ll also give that opportunity to our students to be able to learn from very experienced faculty both here and from Tulane University.”
The partnership, explained Dr. Manortey, would offer the two institutions the opportunity to not only learn from each other but jointly seek funding for research.
Dr. Thomas LaVeist, Dean of the School of Public Health at Tulane University, underscored the institution’s long history of working in Africa as well as other parts of the world, adding that he’s eager to re-establish ties with the African continent after travel limitations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Explaining that the programme would offer students and faculties from both Ghana and the US exchange opportunities to visit each other’s country to offer both learning and teaching opportunities, he emphasized that the partnership with Ensign is just one of many that Tulane University is establishing with several others around the world.
Asked about the expectations from the engagement, he responded: “What is assured is that we will have a program and it takes just the commitment of both universities to do something together, we’re still discussing the details of what that’ll be and exactly how that will happen but both institutions have a commitment to improving and protecting the health of the public and we want to work together to see how we can become even more effective in doing that together.
Brainchild of the partnership, Dr. Samuel Kakraba who is Professor and Head of School of Public Health and Tropical Health at Tulane University expressed excitement at the opportunity to lead such a global exchange between Tulane University and the Ensign Global University, driven by the conviction that public health challenges are not unique to institutions, necessitating the idea of partnerships among them to enable them tackle the problems on a united front.
“Public health challenges are not unique to institutions and so when you partner with institutions globally then they can be able to tackle the problems,” said. Dr. Kakraba.
The International partnership is expected to expose students and faculties to diverse perspectives, cultures, and research methodologies, broadening their horizons and fostering a global mindset.
