A three-day meeting on sharing information via Internet on veterinary medicine in the CEMAC zone opened on Wednesday in Yaounde. The Rector of the University of Yaoundé I, Oumarou Bouba, has challenged representatives of some six universities and associated institutions, coordinators and focal points of the CEMAC Sub-region, meeting in Yaoundé within the framework of the project, “Linking Institutions For Veterinary Education,” L.I.V.E, to come up with a harmonised regional curricula. Chairing the three-day reflection on wednesday for the Minister of Higher Education, the Rector said it falls in line with government’s initiative to professionalize the higher education sector in Cameroon. Presenting the three-year project, Prof. Guy Tsala Ndzomo, Regional Coordinator of L.I.V.E, said the goal is to come up with a master plan on veterinary education in the CEMAC zone by formalising relations between universities and also producing the curricula for universities in the network. He added that the project is to enhance the capacities of CEMAC countries in the implementation and management of higher education systems in strategic fields of veterinary sciences, animal health, production and food safety.

L.I.V.E is a cooperative development project that connects three Italian universities (Udine, Perouse and Parme), and other six universities from the CEMAC Sub-region (Equatorial Guinea, Owendo in Gabon, Ndjamena in Tchad, N’gaoundéré, Dschang and Yaoundé 1 in Cameroon). The project brings together a network of research, production and food security training institutions, in the CEMAC Sub-region. According to the experts, the project is to help accelerate the process of sub-regional integration, bring to the limelight the considerable potentials that the region possess in the agro-food sector and also to upgrade all farming inputs, the infrastructure for the treatment of animal feed, and above all, the human resources responsible for animal health and sanitary control schemes.

Coming at a time when the higher educational sector in Cameroon is undergoing changes, Oumarou Bouba, told participants to come up with proposals that will foster the sub-region’s quest to harmonise the Bachelor’s-Master’s-Doctorate (BMD) programme. To him, L.I.V.E project is the fruit of North-South and South-South cooperation, which is worth lauding. The opening ceremony of the meeting was attended amongst others, by Raphaelle Festa, First Secretary at the Italian Embassy in Cameroon.

The meeting ends today.