A delegation from China’s Nanjing Audit University (NAU) recently visited the University of Pretoria (UP) as part of a long-standing partnership established in 2009 with UP's Department of Auditing in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS). The visit was aimed at strengthening and extending the partnership and identifying new possible collaborative activities.

“The world benefits a great deal when leading institutions of teaching and learning from different parts of the world exchange scientific knowledge, students and staff, as part of a 14-year-old partnership that shows no signs of slowing down,” said Interim UP Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Themba Mosia during a gift-exchange ceremony with Professor Yan Weilong, who is President of NAU.

“I have been reliably informed that the collaboration between UP and Nanjing Audit University has been working very well, and is still going strong,” Prof Mosia told the attendees. “It has included the exchange of staff and students, as well as the supervision of PhD students. As you all know, UP is one of the highly ranked universities in this country and the world. To have a partnership with a university of your quality makes us very proud to be associated with an institution of your quality.”

Prof Mosia expressed his delight that UP’s EMS Faculty and NAU have agreed to extend their collaboration beyond their Auditing departments to include their Human Resources Management and Business Management departments. “We take partnerships very seriously, and my information is that this partnership is a very strong and productive one.”

Delegates from the University of Pretoria and China’s Nanjing Audit University celebrate a 14-year-old collaboration.

UP and NAU have received extremely positive feedback for successful exchange programmes involving nearly 30 students and four lecturers from each institution since the partnership was established. Both UP and NAU’s Internal Auditing programmes are accredited by the global Institute of Internal Auditors as part of its Internal Auditing Education Partnership programme.

“We are certainly proud to be an active partner of the University of Pretoria,” Professor Yan said. “We already have a lot of students and lecturers who have come to learn and teach at UP as part of this fruitful collaboration. For example, Prof Wang Shihong, the Dean of the School of Government Audit at NAU, has lectured at UP before, and we also have some professors from UP like Prof Kato Plant, a lecturer in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at UP, who has been to NAU four times. It is indeed true that we want to broaden the collaboration. We will be happy to have more opportunities to exchange students and lecturers, as well as additional collaborations on research projects.”

Prof Sunil Maharaj, UP’s Vice-Principal for Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Education, said UP is the largest residential university in South Africa and number one in terms of research output out of all its 26 public universities. The EMS Faculty is the leading South African creator of research in Accounting Sciences and Economics, Prof Maharaj said, which makes UP keen to learn more about other opportunities for collaboration.

He added that UP has a strategy to grow its partnerships in Africa and globally, making the engagement with NAU extremely important.