Speaking last week when he launched the University of Nairobi’s (UoN) Sh1.4 billion Confucius Institute, Prof Magoha said the future of learning was international and only institutions that helped students understand happenings across the globe would remain relevant.
“The university of the future is characterised by internationalisation of programmes where cross-pollination of ideas is made possible through academic exchanges,” he said adding that the UoN must become an African centre of excellence for Chinese language and cultural studies.
UoN chancellor Vijoo Rattansi urged for closer co-operation between Kenya and China to benefit from exchange of knowledge and skills.
Professor Magoha, who spent 32 years teaching at the university rising to become the UoN VC said 17,000 Kenyans had undertaken Chinese language and cultural studies at the temporal Confucius Institute set up years ago at UoN main campus.
The new facility will be headed by Professor Susan Xiao and will be tasked with championing Chinese Language and cultural studies as well as student exchange programmes.