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Taipei, Oct. 9 (CNA) Taiwan has decided to help Gambia nurture high-tech
specialists to pave the way for the African country to establish its own
"Silicon Valley, " an academic source said Monday.
Under financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) ,
the National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT) will be sponsoring
the program starting next August by offering four-year university
education to 25 Gambian citizens.
NTUT President Tsu-tian Lee, who visited Gambia during the summer, said
Gambian President Yahya Alphonse Jamus Jebulai Jammeh had told him that
he keenly hopes the Gambian people can establish a "Silicon Valley" by
2020, a goal which has made the nurturing of high-tech talent
imperative.
According to Lee, the Gambian president told him that Taiwan is one of
the world's leaders in high technology and related industries and is
always ready to help and that he is grateful that the MOFA and NTUT are
devoted to sponsoring an exclusive information technology class for
Gambian students to help Gambia realize its dream.
In
addition to attending the English IT class exclusively designed and
reserved for Gambian students, they will also be able to take other NTUT
classes, such as electronic engineering, electrical engineering and
optoelectronics, as elective courses, Lee said.
NTUT has since 2004 helped Gambia nurture specialists in crude oil
exploration and other areas of the petroleum industry by offering
four-year university education to 25 Gambian citizens, also under the
co-auspices of the MOFA.
The
West African country of Gambia, formerly a British colony, possesses
huge deposits of crude oil in its offshore areas. Lee said that the
Gambian government has attached great importance to Gambian students'
receiving education in Taiwan, as do the MOFA and NTUT.
Lee
said he led a 30-member group of NTUT faculty and students to accompany
these Gambian students home in July for the summer break. Many of the
Gambian students are members of the royal family or children of business
magnates.
During that visit, Lee said, President Jammeh asked Vice President
Isatou Njie-Saidy to decorate him as a token of appreciation for NTUT's
efforts in the academic exchange program. Njie-Saidy even entertained
Lee and the NTUT group at his ranch.
According to Lee, most of these Gambian students
can now speak Mandarin Chinese and some can even speak the Taiwanese
dialect, although the IT class is taught in English.
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