King Mohammed VI dedicates library and diplomacy academy at Al Akhawayn University
Morocco's King Mohammed VI dedicated this Monday at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI), middle Atlas resort 60 km from Fez, the «Mohammed VI library» and launched the Moroccan Royal Diplomacy Academy.
The university president, Rachid Belmokhtar, stressed that the university has launched in 2000 a master's program in international and diplomatic studies with the collaboration of the ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation, drawing inspiration from the royal speech of April 2000 on challenges of the Moroccan diplomacy.
Given the success of the program that was followed by 24 participants, the ministry decided to set up the Moroccan Royal Diplomacy Academy, hosted by the University.
The academy will offer basic training to new recruits of the ministry, continuous training to diplomats and hold training session for foreign participants seeking to improve their knowlege of Morocco.
The sovereign also unveiled the commemorative plate of the university library that was named after King Mohammed VI. The rapidly expanding library contains 65,000 volumes and possesses a modern wired infrastructure, Intranet and Internet, in addition to over 400 national and international academic journals, magazines and newspapers. The library also provides a campus wide access to a wide variety of electronic resources (full-text electronic books, electronic journals, etc.)
Al Akhawayn university, Morocco's only public English-speaking university based on the North American education system, was set up in 1995. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the fields of computer engineering, business and social sciences and humanities.
The University has a wide array of partnerships with international institutions and currently has exchange and research programs with almost 40 universities in various countries, mostly in the United States. These programs allow students from various universities to come to Al Akhawayn and our students to go abroad for one or two semesters for courses in their majors as well as elective courses destined to broaden their experience. Joint research programs have also been started.
The Al Akhawayn University was certified by the British Education Quality Agency and is in the process of being certified by the US "Middle States Commission on Higher Education."
The university president also said that 505 foreign students have attended courses at AUI while 279 AUI students were sent abroad to continue their higher studies as part of exchange programs.
The sovereign was presented with the 2003-2004 moral and financial reports of the university's activities and a document on the creation of the Moroccan Royal Diplomacy Academy as well as a set of the university's publications.