MILAN (ITALPRESS) – With 123 project-sheets related to initiatives in 40 of 54 African countries, the Africa Plan launched by the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart is a project that aims to bring the continent to the heart of the University’s educational, research and third mission projects. The plan will consolidate studies and educational projects that are the result of ongoing collaboration, agreements and alliances with universities, institutions, businesses and local communities. In the spirit of mutual enrichment, La Cattolica will be able to launch both pathways for the training of young Africans locally or in Italy and become an educational hub open to second-generation African youth living in Europe. The goal is to become the European Athenaeum with the most relevant presence in Africa.The Africa Plan was the focus of the opening ceremony of the Academic Year of the Catholic University of Milan, which was attended by Rector Elena Beccalli, Minister of University and Research Anna Maria Bernini, Archbishop of Milan Monsignor Mario Delpini, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee and Ernest Aryeetey, former secretary general of the African Research Universities Alliance. The ceremony opened with a Eucharistic celebration presided over by the archbishop in the Basilica of St. Ambrose. “A university that wants to be the best for the world cannot ignore some alarming data regarding educational inequality: education is rightly considered a means of providing equality of opportunity, but the level of education often presents intergenerational persistence, that is, it is handed down from one generation to the next perpetuating inequality,” said Rector Beccalli during the inaugural address. According to OECD data (Education at a glance 2024), “globally, 30 percent of adults whose parents have not attained secondary education persist in not attaining that level of education. Still, due to wars, migration and poverty, some 250 million children and youth do not have access to education. And it is precisely girls and young women who suffer the most. These are the symptoms of an emergency if not a real educational catastrophe, as Pope Francis has denounced.” “This is why a university like ours cannot remain indifferent and must propose lines of intervention aimed at guaranteeing equitable access to quality education, including digital education,” he then stressed. “What I propose is an educational pact for new technologies and artificial intelligence; the premise of the pact is that education can benefit from new technologies when they act as mediators, without them becoming an end in themselves. The educational covenant for new technologies and artificial intelligence “will necessarily have to involve students, researchers, institutional actors and civil society. The reference to the global educational pact promoted by Pope Francis is evident and our proposal fits into the groove traced by the Holy Father.” The first test of the effectiveness of this pact “may be the Africa Plan.” In fact, “according to a spirit of reciprocity, the Athenaeum intends to expand pathways for the training of young Africans locally or in our country, to become an educational hub for second-generation African youth who live in Europe, often on the margins, even though they represent a significant part of our future, as well as to make curricular volunteer experiences for our students increasingly systematic.” The goal is “to become the European university with the most relevant presence in Africa, through partnerships with local universities and institutions, with a view to mutual enrichment, for the integral formation of people and the promotion of brotherhood and, not least, peaceful social coexistence.” “Although projections indicate significant demographic growth for the African continent, which will be associated with a significant increase in the workforce,” noted the rector, “the level of education remains low: in fact, unschooling affects 98 million young Africans. And, this, an obstacle to be removed, also to accompany sustainable economic development. The perspective we envision is based on education power, that is, the ability to help a country through incisive and respectful educational plans. Our commitment is to continue and strengthen our initiatives with Africa in close synergy with the entities already working there, from Catholic ones to internationally recognized ones such as UNESCO and FAO.” “Today we live in two times: that of artificial intelligence and that of Africa, and it is important that they have been brought together in this inauguration of the academic year to identify a profoundly innovative future scenario,” Minister Bernini spoke. Artificial intelligence and algorithms make sense only if they are based on the centrality of the person. An educational pact on new technologies that are already here, we can decide whether to undergo them, accompany them or govern them,” she then stressed. As for “the Mattei Plan for us is not a form of enriched or embellished cooperation, but a true partnership. University and research and higher education, it means sharing human capital and talent and also research infrastructure.” As a ministry, Bernini explained, “we have already started doing missions to Africa, to Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, with the conference of rectors and businesses that are multipliers of this initiative. We have done missions to Egypt, the next one will be to Ethiopia and then to other countries.” “The inauguration of the Academic Year of Sacred Heart Catholic University is also celebrated as an invective against banality,” said Monsignor Delpini. Banality is the outcome of knowledge that is reduced to the collection of an equipment, and the Catholic University counteracts banality, the reduction of knowledge to equipment because it proposes to understand knowledge as a factor of wisdom, which contemplates, interprets, uses and critically rethinks its use and does not give up dreaming.” According to the archbishop of Milan, “banality is the result of that way of informing oneself about the world that is reduced to collecting and analyzing data, photographs, bibliographies. The Catholic University counteracts banality because it understands knowledge as relationship. And the interventions of this inauguration are a sign of this way of knowing situations, problems, hope of the African continent not only by accumulating data, but rather by cultivating relationships.” (ITALPRESS).
Photo: xm4
