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“The distance method tested by Consorzio NETTUNO, gone past the Med Net’U Project extraordinary experience and enhanced by the birth of the first Euromediterranean distance university, the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO, will be at the centre of the Italian Government’s plans to restart the dialogue with the countries of the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The flows of immigrants, recently opened up by Mr. Prodi’s Government, will be able to take advantage of distance vocational training thanks to the courses, realised in 4 languages within the Med Net’U Project, acquiring expertise and skills before coming back to Italy”. This was stated by Prof. Luciano Modica, Undersecretary to the Italian Ministry of the University and Research, attending this morning in Cairo the Med Net’U Project Final Conference.
“It’s a great satisfaction – concluded Prof. Modica – because of the leading role that, thanks to NETTUNO, Italy played disseminating technology, expertise and skills in such an important area and in such delicate circumstances”.
“We are creating the most important capital, that one of knowledge – stated Prof. Garito, Rector of the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO and coordinator of the Med Net’U Project – Thanks to the university and vocational training courses produced in four languages, Arabic included, and thanks to a network of human and technological resources that we realised, the European and Arab students will be able to get to know their mutual cultures, free from prejudices, while universities will be able to show to the entire world the huge cultural heritage belonging to the Mediterranean Sea. A dream that has come true – concluded Prof. Garito – a project that has reached the status of system and that allows us to create together the professional profiles that are most on demand on the global market of labour. Just while this area is under the threats of war, we are building the future of the new generations”.
The Egyptian Minister of the University and Research, Hany Helal, thanked Italy, its Government and Prof. Garito “ for the constant efforts made to conceive and realise this project by means of which the young Egyptians and those of the Arab World as well, will be able to study using the new technologies and will be ready to face the challenges set by our society”.
“I thank you very much for being here today – concluded the Ministeraddressing the Italian representatives – and I promise you that we shall accept and finance any project aimed at educating our youths”.
The Med Net’U Project - Mediterranean Network of Universities, funded by the European Commission in the framework of the EUMEDIS Programme, ended up this morning in Cairo with a conference that has taken place at Helwan University campus, in the presence of the Egyptian Minister of the University and Research, of the Italian Undersecretary to the University and Research, of the Rector of Helwan University, of the Italian Ambassador in Egypt, Mr. Antonio Badini, of a delegation of the European Commission and of Prof. Garito, Rector of the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO, the project coordinator. In three years of activity, 32 universities of 11 Mediterranean Countries have been working together developing Consorzio NETTUNO’s distance education model at an international and multicultural level. Two common curricula in Computer Engineering and Telecommunication Engineering have been designed through the cooperation of all partners realising university degree courses in four languages and each one in his mother tongue: Arabic, French, English and Italian. In the field of vocational training, 25 courses, including tourism management and computer literacy, also in four languages, have been produced. 11 Production Centres and 31 Technological Poles for each one of the partners, have been implemented: by means of which universities can produce videolessons and students can attend the lessons in the language of their choice, using the Internet or the satellite TV on the website: www.uninettunouniversity.net and on the satellite channels Rai Nettuno Sat 1 and Rai Nettuno Sat 2.
Soon after the closing ceremony of Med Net’U Project, which has become a system with the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO, the siege of UNINETTUNO Technological Pole in Egypt has been inaugurated; it has been implemented at Helwan University campus, the second university in the country with its 100,000 students.
The Technological Pole of the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO in Egypt is equipped with all the technologies needed to follow the distance courses in the preferred language (Arabic, French, English, Italian and Spanish) and participate in the didactic activities by videoconference; it will be also a physical place for actual real meetings, host the organisation of face-to-face exams and meetings and seminars with professors, tutors who will be at the students’ disposal.
This initiative will give a significant contribution to the dialogue among cultures. In fact, the project is aimed at the world of young people, of the new generations who, working together, will be helped to get to know and understand political, social and cultural differences and build together new forms of dialogue and cooperation. Only a month before and always at Helwan University, an agreement for the delivery to Egyptian students of Computer Engineering and vocational training courses in Arabic has been signed.
To the first course in Computer Engineering, started up at the new Technological Pole in Cairo, will follow courses for Java Programmers, Project Management, Information Technology and Business Communication, Management of Cultural Assets, Sustainable Development, Intellectual Property, Environment and Territory Planning, Staff Training, Geographical Information Systems, Territory Management, Tele-work, Regional Marketing and a course on the Information Society and the New Challenges of the Mediterranean Area; they will be broadcast on the satellite channel Rai Nettuno Sat 1 and via the Internet on the portal www.uninettunouniversity.net .
Actually, the agreement signed between Helwan University and the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO, provides for the delivery of training and re-training courses in the sectors that are most on demand on the global market of labour. The students of these courses will be able to study without moving from their own countries and get a study title acknowledged in Italy and in Europe as well.
For 2005/2006 academic year, besides vocational training courses, the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO offers university degree courses in:
Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Management Engineering, Legal Expert in Development and Internationalisation of Enterprises, Cultural Assets Operator, Economics and Business Management, Psycho-social Disciplines; in addition, master courses in field of common interest will be started up.
In order to enrol and start the learning process, the main tool is the Internet. On www.uninettunouniversity.net didactic portal the student can, whenever he wishes so, to access to digitised videolessons linked in an hypertextual and multimedia way to textbooks, bibliographical references, selected lists of websites, exercise texts. Along this path, the student-user is always assisted by a professor-tutor by means of chats, also audio and video, forums and videoconferencing systems. The exams are taken on a face-to-face mode at the Technological Poles. The professors who realise the videolessons and all the materials related to the distance courses in their own languages come from the most important university of Europe and of the Mediterranean Countries, are chosen among the best ones in their own subjects by an International Commission on the basis of their curricula. The students of these courses can choose to study in the language the prefer and compare the cultures and different way of teaching the same subject.
In the current historical times, the implementation of such models of cooperation among the countries of the Euromediterranean Area has a significance that goes far beyond the mere delivery of study titles. Cooperating to jointly create skills and knowledge is the way by which we can start new relationships and new models for dialogue and exchange.