On January 22, 2020, Coventry University’s Vice-Chancellor John Latham and Tariq Obaid president of SIST, an English operated university campus in Casablanca signed an agreement to build Morocco’s first UK campus.
During the inaugural meeting of the UK-Morocco Higher Education Commission, Latham expressed that the University was excited to be part of making history and looking forward to building a strong relationship “around science, technology, and teacher training.” He also commented on the possibility of creating collaborations in “nurse training, nurse education, exploring links around research, especially water security and food security.”
The joint activities are expected to create opportunities for thousands of Moroccan students by providing them with alternative education that has the potential to contribute to the country’s human resource development. Furthermore, the cross-cultural network will create joint activities likely to inspire other partnerships between the two nations.
For the initial phase, an agreement has been set up that will allow mobility between both campuses for Moroccan staff and students. The aim is to create more opportunities for joint research and teaching across borders.