Education
Foster tomorrow's leaders...
Why invest in a university in a country struggling to provide even primary education?
Every country needs LEADERS - nurses, teachers, journalists, lawyers, entrepreneurs, public servants - professionals with the knowledge and confidence to direct their societies' development.
Since the early 1980's, Canada and Canadians have helped foster leaders by building and guiding world-class, locally relevant universities and programs in the developing world. These investments in higher learning have had a dramatic ripple effect across Asia and Africa.
Aga Khan University
Based in Karachi, Pakistan, the Aga Khan University (AKU) has been a centre for academic excellence for the past two decades. Canadian expertise set these high standards for faculty training, curriculum development and research. It is a true collaboration: an exchange of faculty and students from Canada and Pakistan, and with this, a sharing of ideas, talents and perspectives.
Today, the AKU's benefits extend beyond training students at high levels. Its programs have raised the status and expanded opportunities for women professionals, who constitute an overwhelming majority of teachers and nurses in the region.
University of Central Asia
In 2000, the University of Central Asia (UCA) was created to link one of the world's most isolated areas with the global community. The UCA will create intellectual spaces and resources that will change the mountains dividing the wider region's 22 million inhabitants into links uniting Central Asia's diverse peoples and economies.
The challenges mountain communities in Central Asia face are not unique. In developing resources to better understand and address these challenges, UCA will contribute to the study and preservation of mountain cultures around the world.
