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Gabriel Dike
Officials of the University of East Anglia (UEA), Norwich, UK and the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka have concluded arrangements to go into academic linkage, research collaboration, and staff exchange programme.
The beneficiary of the academic linkage, research and staff exchange are the students and staff of UNILAG Faculty of Law. Both parties are eager to see the arrangement come into fruition.
To kick-start the process, officials of UEA lead by Associate Professor of Law, Dr. Hakeem Seriki and UEA Recruitment Manager (East and West Africa), Mrs. Deby Okoh visited UNILAG Faculty of Law recently for discussion on the proposed arrangement.
Dr. Seriki gave a talk to over 500 Law students on Arbitration, its challenges and problems. He expressed the desire for law faculties in the country to promote Arbitration and why the courts should embrace the dispute resolution mechanism.
According to him, the second part of the visit is to introduce the UEA scholarship scheme to UNILAG Law undergraduates and encouraged them to apply for the full and partial scholarship.
“UEA will give one full LLM scholarship to UNILAG Law student. The selection will be done by the faculty, they will submit three names to UEA. We will ask the nominated students to write an essay on why they should get the scholarship’’.
Seriki said for the partial scholarship, the number of students are unlimited. It ranges from £4,000 to £6,000. He further announced that UEA has agreed to strengthen the relationship with UNILAG Law faculty to present postgraduate students for PhD.
He added: ‘’We have large PhD students. I am currently supervising a Nigerian for his PhD. It takes three years to complete a PhD. UNILAG is the only university we want to collaborate with. UEA expects it to grow higher and attract more Nigerian students’’.
In her contributions, the Recruitment Manager (East and West Africa), Mrs. Okoh said UNILAG Law students were excited about the scholarship offer and the talk on Arbitration. She noted that the collaboration will yield positive results for both institutions.
Okoh disclosed that UEA has over 100 West African students including some Nigerians studying different courses, stating ‘’the partial scholarship is opened to Sub Sahara Africa students. The full scholarship is for UNILAG Law students because of the reputation of its Law faculty’’.
She said UEA established over 50 years ago, is noted for research, International Development, Law and Environmental Science, adding ‘’when it comes to science, we are strong. We have our teaching hospital’’.
The Dean, Faculty of Law, UNILAG, Prof Ayo Atsenuwa described university as a global institution, thus academic linkage is part of the collaboration they enter with one another, adding ‘’we want to partner with UEA on Arbitration, research, and postgraduate studies’’.
Prof Atsenuwa said she expects the linkage to grow to something bigger and appreciated UEA for considering students in the Law faculty for the full and partial scholarships.
She acknowledged that Dr. Seriki shared with their students talk on Arbitration and stressed that its students have Arbitration Society while the Institute of Arbitration has been partnering with the faculty in the last three years.
