Legon, Aug. 26, GNA – Fifteen students and three Professors from Nihon University in Japan, led by Professor Kinihiro Masumi today, paid a day’s familiarisation tour of Radio Univers, a community FM station of the University of Ghana, Legon.
The visit formed part of the activities of the study tour of the students to Ghana. An official agreement has been signed between Nihon University and the College of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences on academic exchange of students and research programmes.
In an interview with GNA, Professor Kinihiro, the leader of the group said the students’ exchange programme was facilitated by the visit of President John Agyekum Kufuor to the Nihon University, when he was in Japan a few years ago.
He added that the interest of Nihon University in Africa cumulated in the organisation of the Food Security Symposium for African in conjunction with FAO, as part of TICAD III in collaboration with FAO in Tokyo, Japan.
Two Professors from the University of Ghana have earlier paid visits to the Nihon University and this time, students from Nihon University are visiting Ghana.
Some of the areas they have visited included the offices of the Japanese International Co-operation Agency (JICA), the Okyereko Irrigation Project in the Central Region and the Agricultural Research Centre in Kpong to study farming systems and major constraints facing the Ghanaian farmer.
The students acknowledged the development of the farmer-based credit system, which was initiated by Professor Masumi eight years ago. Currently the farmers are independent financially and are granting loans among themselves for farming activities.
Professor Masumi said the Nihon University is the largest private University in Japan, which has a student population of 88,000 with twelve different colleges.
He said Nihon University collaborates with universities in twenty different universities around the world and emphasized that University of Ghana is the only institution in Africa that has a collaborative link with his university.
Professor Masumi acknowledged that Ghanaians are very hospitable and would want more Japanese to visit Ghana. They paid a courtesy call on the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor C. N. B. Tagoe.
Source: GhanaWeb
