By Seyi Babalola
Sterling Bank Plc, Nigeria’s leading commercial bank, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Africa EDUCare, a disruptive innovation educational and healthcare solutions company, to transform higher education in Nigeria with Unify; Sterling’s innovative education management solution.
The signed MoU is conceived to deploy Unify to transform education and administrative management, and to enable Africa EDUCare realize its dream of floating the Maranatha Institute of Science and Technology (MiST); a NextGen STEAM university with an innovative curriculum focused on Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Agribusiness, and Medicine curriculum.
Speaking at the signing ceremony in Lagos, Mr. Obinna Ukachukwu, Divisional Head for Business Growth and Transaction Banking at Sterling Bank, said education remains and continues to be one of the five critical sectors of Sterling’s focus under our HEART strategy. The other sectors are Health, Agriculture, Renewable Energy, and Transportation.
“We believe that continued investments in these sectors are key to ensuring the nation’s survival, growth, and prosperity beyond this generation,” Ukachukwu said.
Obinna continued by saying that Unify is conceived to transform the administration of education at all levels in Nigeria. He said, “At Sterling, we believe that Nigerian tertiary education needs to be reengineered before it can be empowered to transform industry, and the corporate world, with the kind of adequately skilled manpower required for the desired impact.”
Professor James Makinde, CEO and President of Africa EDUCare, mentioned that the partnership presents great development prospects for Nigeria, saying that “Africa EDUCare proposes to revolutionize education and revitalize the national economy for global impact through tertiary and vocational education that transfers skills that are immediately usable in the marketplace.”
He added that “The strategy for Africa EDUCare is to take learnings from developed and developing economies through the design of impact instruction modules that mirror real-life employability needs, leveraged through technology.”
Prof. Makinde, also the pioneer Vice-Chancellor of the prestigious Babcock University, concluded by saying that a strategic alliance with an institution of Sterling Bank’s stature and repute will, in the nearest future, transform the education landscape and assist in transforming this vision into reality. Also present at the signing ceremony were Adatugo Oyebanji, General Manager, Café One (UNIFY), Olufunso Olunaike, Chief Technical Officer, Café One (UNIFY), Prof. Kamar T. Adeleke, President/CEO of Tristate Healthcare System and Executive Vice President, Healthcare for Africa EDUCare.