New agreement reinforces École Polytechnique’s academic cooperation in Ivory Coast to train high-level executives in Renewable Energies
From left to right: Mr. Abdourahmane Cissé, minister of Petroleum, Energy and Renewable Energies of Ivory Coast, Mr. Clément HERVÉ, French Embassy to Ivory Coast - representative of École Polytechnique, Mr. Koffi N'GUESSAN, managing director of INP-HB, Mr. Adama DIAWARA, minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research of Ivory Coast.
The Master’s program ETRE focuses on technologies in the renewable energy sector and is part of École Polytechnique’s academic cooperation with local actors in Ivory Coast aiming at training tomorrow’s high-level executives. The program was designed jointly by École Polytechnique and INP-HB in response to a call for proposals from the Franco-Ivorian Hub for Education. The hub aims to develop the educational offer in Ivory Coast by putting French expertise at the service of Ivorian higher education institutions. The project ETRE won the call in July 2019.
Considering this program of high importance, the ministry of Petroleum, Energy and Renewable Energies of Ivory Coast has committed to fund scholarships totalling 120,000 euros, which will benefit twenty Ivorian students from underprivileged backgrounds and support them in their ambition to integrate the Master’s program specialized in Renewable Energies. The convention confirming the financial support was signed on October 14, 2020 by the minister of Petroleum, Energy and Renewable Energies of Ivory Coast, Mr. Abdourahmane Cissé, the minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research of Ivory Coast, Mr. Adama Diawara, the managing director of INP-HB, Mr. Koffi N’Guessan, and the provost of École Polytechnique, Mr. Yves Laszlo. L’X commits to provide additional funding through industrial scholarships. The program is set to be launched in September 2021 in Côte d’Ivoire.
The necessity for ecological transformation is a reality on a global scale and implies a strong response to tackle environmental challenges pertaining to climate change and the increasing scarcity of resources. Graduates of the ETRE Master’s program will be qualified to join the renewable energy sector in Africa and to contribute to developing the sector. This local pool of executives specialized in renewable energies will also help to fulfill the current demand from the local private sector.
The incumbent minister of Petroleum, Energy and Renewable Energies of Côte d’Ivoire, Mr. Cissé is an alumnus of École Polytechnique.
A strong academic cooperation covering a wide range of subject
Forged by the merger of four higher education institutions in Yamoussoukro in 1996*, the Institut National Polytechnique Felix Houphouët Boigny positions itself as a Panafrican center of excellence, dedicated to higher education for engineers and offering Ivorian students the possibility to access French and Moroccan engineering institutions.
Since 2018, L’X coordinates the academic expertise, which teachers of the French Lycée Louis-le-Grand provide to INP-HB’s preparatory classes. This cooperation includes the training of students for the entrance exams to the Grandes écoles specialized in engineering. This collaboration allows students from the Ingénieur Polytechnicien program to do their first year’s internship at INP-HB, where they assist students in the preparatory classes in maths and physics amongst others. L’X also contributes to organizing cross exchanges for professors from the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand, who teach preparatory classes, and their counterparts in Ivory Coast, to enable them to share educational expertise and best practices. The two institutions – L’X and INP-HB – signed a convention aimed to reinforce the preparatory classes system in Ivory Coast, in October 2018. The financing of the project was made possible thanks to the Debt Reduction and development contract, managed by the French Agency for Development (AFD).
In addition to the reinforcement of preparatory classes and the specialized master’s in renewable energy, L’X and INP-HB have been partnering since 2017 in another domain: a Master’s program in Data Science, inaugurated by INP-HB in collaboration with ÉNSEA Abidjan (École Nationale Supérieure de Statistique et d’Économie Appliquée), the Foundation of École Polytechnique and the telecom company. Faculty teaching this master’s program includes data sciences professors from École Polytechnique and sector professionals.
*l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Agronomie (ENSA), l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Travaux Publics (ENSTP), l’Institut Agricole de Bouaké (IAB), l’Institut National Supérieur de l’Enseignement Technique (INSET)