Around 140 PhD students are due in Shannon today from North Africa to study at the University of Limerick.
The students are being sent here by the Algerian government to take a language course in an arrangement, agreed early last year, and believed to be worth as much as €20m to the university.
The deal came about after the Algerian government decided to move from French to English as the official language of teaching and learning in third level institutions.
The students are coming to Limerick to study as part of what was described as a ‘game changing’ deal to help transform higher education in Algeria.
The ground-breaking initiative by the Algerian government to move from French to English as the official language of teaching and learning in third level is to be supported through a specially designed PhD programme offered to visiting students at UL.
UL agreed to facilitate the conversion to English as a teaching medium with the Algerian Ministry of National Education as the country moves to increase the visibility of research in higher education institutions.
The first phase of the project saw 117 PhD students, the majority of whom are female, join the international PhD programme in UL.
Overall the programme will see 400 Algerian PhD students study at UL during the four years of the project in a contract estimated to be worth up to €20 million.
2 comments
I’m not sure that Phd students are the answer , I would have prefered that the conversion starts from the french teachers in primary schools.
I agree, though devil hides in the details….