Kuwait Times

Published Date: March 13, 2007
By Ben Garcia

KUWAIT: The American University of Kuwait (AUK) yesterday inked a memorandum of understanding with New Bulgaria University (NBU), paving the way for academic cooperation between the two.

AUK President Marina Tolmacheva and NBU representative Velin Belev signed the MOU at the AUK campus in Salmiya. The universities agreed to establish academic partnership including the development of exchange programmes for students and teachers, a joint seminar, summer courses and other activities.

Speaking after the ceremony, Tolmacheva expressed confidence in NBU as the university continues to spread its wings on other international universities.
AUK has a memorandum of cooperation as well with Darthmouth College, US. "We have two main reasons on why we agreed on such cooperation. First, AUK wanted to increase the level of international reach.  Besides being new, NBU follows the American model of teaching just like us at AUK so we believe we could be great partners. Secondly, Bulgaria is increasingly trying to reach out the Gulf region and they are very well interested on learning many things about Kuwait and the region. In that way we could be of big help to each other," she said.

Established in 2004, the American University of Kuwait is four-year liberal arts institution, which follows American model of higher education and fully accredited by the Private University Council of Kuwait.

The NBU founded in 1991, also follows the liberal idea of education and obtained institutional accreditation from the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency. In 2004, the Open University in Great Britain accredited NBU.
For further information about AUK and NBU please visit www.auk.edu.kw, www.nbu.bg