By: Tunde Olofintila
The World stood still and applauded Nigeria in faraway Beijing, China, as Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, ABUAD, received the “2024 Chinese Plus Digital & Intelligent Education Gold Medal Cooperative Institution FYZ Award” on Sunday, November 17, 2024.
The Award ceremony which was part of the three-day 2024 World Chinese Language Conference saw many Nigerians and 2,000 participants, including Government Officials, School Principals, Experts, Scholars, Representatives of Teachers and Students and Diplomatic Envoys from more than 160 countries and Regions of the world craning their necks while some others lowered their gaze to catch a glimpse of ABUAD’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Elisabeta Smaranda Olarinde, who received the Award on behalf of the wave-making university.
This latest Award has thus become another addition to the warren of national and international Awards and Accolades that has been the lot of the 15-year-old ABUAD, the 21st Century University recently ranked by the highly respected Times Higher Education Impact Rankings as No. 1 in the World in SDG 7, No. 1 in the World in Outreach with a score of 98%, No. 1 in the World in Stewardship with a score of 98.2%, No. 1 among all the 264 Federal, State, and Private universities in Nigeria for three consecutive years: 2022, 2023 and 2024.
According to Mr. Kevin Liu, the Deputy General Manager of the China-Africa Investment FZC, “The World Chinese Language Conference is a premier event in the field of global Chinese Education, bringing together distinguished Guests and Representatives from around the world”.
In his letter dated November 7, 2024, titled “Celebrating Excellence: Prestigious Honour for Commitment to China-Nigeria Educational Collaboration” informing the university of the Award, Liu added: “We are thrilled and proud to inform you that your esteemed university (ABUAD) will be awarded the “Chinese Plus Digital & Intelligent Education Gold Medal Cooperative Institution” at the upcoming 2024 World Chinese Language Conference in Beijing, China.
“This honour not only recognizes your university’s commitment to China-Nigeria Educational cooperation, but it also reflects our high expectations for the future. We hope that this recognition will further drive and support (our) joint industry-education initiatives between China and Nigeria (thereby) fostering deeper collaborations in Nigeria and laying a strong foundation for integration in education and industry between our nations”.
Delving into the import of the Conference, Liu continued: “This year’s Conference is especially prestigious with the attendance of high-level leaders, including China’s Vice President and the Minister of Education who will deliver important addresses. Additionally, leaders in education from over 100 countries will gather to discuss the future direction of Chinese Language Education”.
In recent years, with the joint efforts of global partners, the Chinese Language Alliance has gathered premium digital resources, actively innovated online teaching formats and gradually developed into a globally renowned, resource-rich, and highly specialized international Chinese digital education service platform.
Currently, the platform offers more than 30,000 courses in Chinese language and culture, has established partnerships with over 1,600 Schools, Institutions, and Enterprises across 163 countries and serves more than 10 million registered learners in 211 countries and regions.
Following evaluations by the Organizing Committee and global online voting, 50 Gold Medal Cooperative Institutions, 29 Gold Medal courses, 35 Gold Medal teachers, 13 Gold Medal teaching tools and 21 outstanding application cases were selected for the Gold Awards.
To underscore the import of the Conference, Chinese President, Xi Jinping, sent a Congratulatory message to the World Chinese Language Conference, stressing that the Chinese language, which encapsulates the millennia-old wisdom of the Chinese civilization, is an important public cultural product that China has contributed to the world.
According to Xi, China’s responsibility as the native-language country is to support and facilitate the international community in conducting Chinese language education.
He expressed the hope that the Conference would enhance interconnection and integration, build consensus, strive to build bridges of lingual connectivity, understanding and mutual trust and mutual learning between civilizations, thus contributing to jointly building a community with a shared future for mankind.
It remains an unparalleled innovation in the educational landscape in Nigeria that Aare Afe Babalola remains the first and only Educationist in Nigeria that has made the study of either French or Chinese language compulsory for all his students. And this is in addition to each of them studying and mastering one of the Nigeria’s three major languages of Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo.
Babalola’s ingenuity of introducing Chinese language as a compulsory language in ABUAD in 2011 has since been yielding evident and undeniable dividends with many of the students being principal beneficiaries of the programme.
For example, in 2012, two ABUAD students, Miss Queen Modestus and Miss Elizabeth Belema, got scholarships to study in two separate Universities in China and in 2016, an Engineering graduate of Afe Babalola University, Miss Oghenetejiri Odjighoro, went for a job interview with Huawei Technologies Ltd and out of over 200 Applicants, she was chosen because of her background in Chinese language in ABUAD. She later wrote a letter of appreciation to the University, the Founder and the entire Management of ABUAD for introducing Chinese Language into the University’s curriculum.
During the 2019/2020 session, two other graduates of ABUAD got admission to study in Hangzhou Normal University in China where they performed excellently well in their studies in China.
In 2019, more than 60 students participated in the HSK Examination in ABUAD. Six of them were considered for special Awards for performing excellently by the Confucius Institute, UNILAG, in partnership with some Chinese companies. It is therefore imperative for all students offering Chinese in ABUAD to count themselves lucky and take the language seriously.
Celebrating the cheering news in Ado-Ekiti over the weekend, an elated and jubilant Babalola said: “The latest Award marks another milestone in the history of our university. We started well. We are doing very well, and we will continue to do well with the cooperation of all stakeholders including the students, the teachers, our dear parents who believe so much in us and of course the Regulatory Bodies such as the Federal Ministry of Education, the Federal Ministry of Health, the NUC, the MDCN, the Council for Legal Education, NSE, COREN, CIBN and ICAN among several other Professional Bodies”.
He stressed that the Award is a further proof that ABUAD is indeed the No. 1 University in Nigeria as recently enunciated by the highly respected Times Higher Education Impact Rankings.
According to him, this is the more heartwarming and commendable because it is coming from outside the country in appreciation of the qualities inherent in ABUAD”.
His words: “That this is coming from China-Africa Investment FZC now when we are still celebrating our ranking by the Times Higher Education Rankings is providential. It also shows the quality of education on offer in our frontline university. This will be good news for all parents and all our well-wishers”.
Babalola, the former Pro Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the University of Lagos, UNILAG, expressed joy at the rare accomplishment, noting that this pleasant and encouraging news of additional feather to the university’s well-adorned hat of Awards will surely buoy and fast-track his (Babalola’s) dream and vision to reform functional education in this clime by providing and leading others in quality education, service, industry, and character as well as discipline.
Equally, his vision of establishing “a World-class Education Centre of Excellence in Academics, Characters, Sport and Vocational Development to produce sound and agile professionals and produce leaders and achievers who would be self-reliant, kind, generous, considerate and sportsman-like” has crystallized into reality, particularly with the monumental developments in the university in the last 15 years during which the university has graduated 12 sets of students since its maiden Convocation on Sunday, October 21, 2013.
Olofintila, ABUAD’s Director, Corporate Affairs writes from Ado-Ekiti