No fewer than 350 Nigerian undergraduate and postgraduate students have benefitted from educational programmes in Brazil, the Consul General in Lagos, Fransisco Luz, has said.
Luz spoke at the opening of the 2021 annual lecture and one week Exhibition of Arts/Film show of the Lagos State University Centre for Afro-Brazilian Students on Monday, in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the theme of the lecture is ‘Brazil/Nigeria relations: Historical and future opportunities.’
The envoy said that there was an agreement between Nigeria and Brazil which allowed Nigerian students to travel to Brazil on scholarship to study for either undergraduate or postgraduate courses.
“The programme for undergraduate is called PEC-G while that of postgraduate is called PEC-PG (in the Portuguese acronym) and there is also a cooperation programme between Brazil and countries in Africa, Latin America and Caribbean.
“Its goal is to give young students from these countries an opportunity to undertake their full undergraduate studies at Brazilian universities,” Luz said.
According to him, more recent developments has made governments turn their attention to technical and vocational education and training programmes, tagged TVET.
“LASU, through the Centre for Afro-Brazilian studies, has applied to be a centre of excellence for the conduct of this exam and it is hoped this will be approved very soon.
“However, in recent times, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and some reorganisation in the Agency that handles the examination, the exams, for now, hold in Brazil,” Luz said.
In his remarks, Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, Vice-Chancellor, LASU, said that the main objective of the centre was to promote in-depth research on the Brazilian cultural, archaeological and architectural relics in Nigeria, especially in Lagos state.
Olatunji-Bello noted that Brazil had a lot of socio-historical and political similarities with Nigeria dating back to the era of slavery.
“The two countries maintain a traditional and diversified relationship, with a strong Nigerian influence on Brazilian cultural and social formation.
“It is hoped that the centre will grow to become an authority and a recognised voice on Afro-Brazilian issues and one of the international faces of LASU,” she said.
(NAN).
