When you think about the word University, you may remember those years that you spent at your Faculty, learning law, science, mathematics, computer studies or arts. But those were also the years that forged your future, where you met students from all over your region, country or continent, where you became a citizen of the world.
In Europe or in America, we are privileged to have access to Universities at almost every corner and exchange programmes which allow us now to spend time in another campus, discovering another culture, another methodology and making friends from all around the globe.
But there are regions of the world where this access is limited, where the choice is poor and where Universities are not for everyone.
At Middlesex University Dubai, we have decided to invest private resources to develop courses accessible to a maximum of candidates and to offer a large spectrum of formations. We believe that a University is a model of Universality. By training the next generation of economic, politic or scientific leaders, we wish to contribute to the development of the region where we establish our campus because we know that foreign students coming to Europe often prefer to make their careers here. We also wish to teach our values and fundamental rights: tolerance, open mindedness, equality of gender, the rule of law and democracy.
We feel therefore privileged that the Middlesex University of London accepted 5 years ago to adopt our vision of universality and embarked with us in what is the first UK campus abroad. Since then, we developed sites in Uganda, Sri Lanka and we now aim to install a campus in Kenya and in french speaking Africa, provided that we can convince french Universities to charter their programmes in our campus there.
In Dubai, we have already trained 3000 students who all received grades that are validated by our London counterpart and the equivalence of their diplomas is not an issue. But they received more than a simple grade. They enjoyed the lectures of renowned professors from different countries and backgrounds; they met people from various horizons; they had access to sports, culture and the arts. They became men and women ready to embark upon an active life with a strong heritage and good values. They are the potential leaders of tomorrow, and we wish to see many more coming to our campuses in Africa and Asia. We wish to continue to develop partnerships with the best Universities worldwide to ensure that our offer is of the best possible quality for a reasonable price, making it accessible for a large base of students. University education is an important export and a builder of bridges for cross-cultural understanding.