NICO To Partner UFUK, China

Executive Secretary of NICO, Dr. Barclays Ayakoroma
Executive Secretary of NICO, Dr. Barclays Ayakoroma

The National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO) says it will partner with UFUK Dialogue Foundation, and the Chinese Cultural Centre to train culture workers in Nigeria.

The Executive Secretary of the institute, Dr. Barclays Ayakoroma, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.

He said that NICO was upgrading its academic programmes to include; “talking culture diplomacy which means special training on how to be diplomatic during dialogue’’.

“We have discussed with the Chinese Cultural Centre in Nigeria and UFUK Dialogue, a Turkish Foundation based in Nigeria and they are interested in the course programmes,’’ he said.

The UFUK Dialogue Foundation was founded in 2011 in Nigeria with the objective to foster interfaith and intercultural dialogue.

The Foundation was established to also stimulate thinking, exchange of on opinions on supporting, fostering democracy and peace, to provide a common for education and information exchange.

“In fact, UFUK Dialogue has offered to host the first edition of our ‘talking culture diplomacy’ during the upcoming NICO public lectures,” Ayakoroma said.

“Our robust study centres in January this year started the section and we have admitted the second set of participants to the training school’s post graduate diploma programme.”

“We are now running the Post Graduate Diploma in Cultural Administration PGDCA and Advanced Diploma in Cultural Administration ADCA both in Abuja and Lagos study centres.”

“We have also introduced a programme seminar in cultural diplomacy which attracted quite some interest in members of the public,” he added.

Ayakoroma stated that by the time the institute was through with its collaboration, the study centre would be one of the best sought after by all.

(NAN)