1 July 2007
Nampula — Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Friday inaugurated a new public university, the University of Lurio (Unilurio), in the northern city of Nampula, the first public institution of higher education in the country to have its headquarters outside of Maputo.
Delivering the new university's inaugural lecture, Guebuza called for efforts to "synchronise" scientific and traditional knowledge, in the drive to achieve sustainable development.
"The knowledge that will be acquired here should result, in the first place, from constant interaction with the ancient knowledge of our people", he said.
Scientific knowledge, added the President, "is the light that illuminates our daily activities - it increases our creativity and helps us speed up the construction of our well- being".
It was this knowledge, he continued, that would allow Mozambicans to deal with problems of health and nutrition, generate more jobs, and improve the use made of the country's natural resources.
The pioneers of the new university, urged Guebuza, should dedicate themselves to study and research to serve as an example and reference point to subsequent generations of students.
"Confront the knowledge you acquire on the campus with local reality, and afterwards be able to systematise this reality and bring it back to the campus to enrich the academic debate", Guebuza told his audience.
The university is opening with just one faculty, of health sciences, that will train doctors, dentists and pharmacists.
Initially, it has 130 students.
Next year, Unilurio hopes to expand further north, into Niassa province, where it plans to open a faculty of agricultural sciences. In the third northern province, Cabo Delgado, Unilurio will set up a computer engineering course.
The new university is strongly supported by Cuba which has supplied three specialists to teach medical courses.
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