Dr. Arabkheradmand Meets Honorable Ambassador of Senegal

The meeting of the Ambassador with Dr. Arabkheradmand was the third and last part of the tour of TUMS by the Ambassador, which included a visit to TUMS School of Dentistry and Tehran Heart Center.

At the beginning, Dr. Arabkheradmand provided a detailed presentation of the university to the Ambassador, talking about the student population, international admissions and programs, TUMS schools, rankings, international activities, hospitals, publications etc. An important point that was mentioned was that TUMS has no limitation to accept students from Senegal, and Dr. Arabkheradmand encouraged the Senegalese party to invest in this opportunity.

Afterwards, Dr. Shabani continued the presentation with a specific focus on the atmosphere of TUMS, emphasizing the quality of student life and the facilities provided for international students. The possibility of cooperation between the university and the embassy regarding Persian instruction was also touched upon.

The Ambassador afterwards thanked TUMS officials for this visit and referred to the fact that the base of Senegal-Iran relations is education. He indicated that different Iranian universities such as Shahid Beheshti University, University of Tehran and universities from Qom, Mashhad and Isfahan are already cooperating with Senegalese institutes. Nonetheless, the Ambassador stated that now is the time to expand this relation to the fields of Natural Sciences, Medical Sciences and Technology.

The Ambassador also made the point that most African students at TUMS are coming from Anglophone countries of east Africa, whereas few students from the western African countries, that is Francophone countries, currently study at TUMS. He mentioned that now is the time to balance this tide and strengthen the flow of students from west Africa to Iran.

Dr. Hadian, TUMS-IC Vice-Dean for Research, later took his turn and emphasized the exceptional state of TUMS as an instructional-research-clinical institute. He stated that TUMS is ready to enter long-distance as well as joint cooperation in terms of research, clinical activities, faculty exchange, student exchange etc.

In terms of clinical cooperation, the Ambassador stated that Senegal could benefit from collaborations in the fields of dermatology, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and malaria. He also mentioned the point that for some international Senegalese applicants, more possibly for Ph.D. candidates, Senegal's government may cover part of their tuitions.

This meeting, which concluded the Ambassador's tour of the university, ended with lunch and friendly discussions regarding Iran's and Senegal's, such as security and budgetary considerations, for future cooperation.