Held by the Department for Business and Trade’s Panama team, the webinar had experts on Panama and its “city of knowledge” – or Ciudad del Saber – showcasing the destination to UK institutional representatives.
A growing amount of interest after an higher education mission to Mexico and Panama prompted the follow-up webinar, to provide institutional representatives for TNE with key information about the country and its Ciudad del Saber area, located in Panama City and echoing the rise of popularity in India’s GIFT City.
“For the past 20 to 25 years, we have been developing this project that aims to transform this former military base into an international complex, which now holds international companies, international universities, research centres [and] government agencies,” said David Aguilar Sanchez, business development manager at the Ciudad del Saber Foundation.
“What we try to do is – through a legal framework that is more friendly for international universities – attract international programs that can complement what we don’t have in the country,” he further explained.
It also comes as Panama was named as a market with increasing outbound student mobility in new research from EdCo LATAM.
Panama has already attracted numerous universities in North America to the Ciudad del Saber through different international and study abroad programs, including Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, McGill University and Iowa State University.
Balboa Academy – a fully bilingual K-12 international school – and Isthmus University, which specialises in architecture, are some of the domestic campuses already set up in the area.
Florida State University, which also happens to have a study centre in London, has made a big impact after opening its own full campus on the site – Florida State University-Panama – whose vice rector for academic affairs talked about the various programs and benefits that it was able to offer domestic and international students.
“We provide a US-style education in Latin American context – all our programs are tailored after the main campus; we provide bachelor’s degrees and one master’s degree,” explained Alexandra Anyfanti.
It’s a solid foundation that provides an opportunity for growth
Alexandra Anyfanti, FSU-Panama
She noted that the campus was not originally located in the Ciudad del Saber, instead providing educational services to US military personal and their dependents stationed in the military bases around Panama’s Canal Zone – but eventually became a founding member of the Ciudad, open first to Panamanian students and now to students across the region.
Some students will spend their first year at the Panama campus before transferring to the main campus, and the two plus two scholarship program for Latin American and Carribean students sees them complete two years of study at the Panama campus, before transferring to the institution’s main campus in Florida on in-state tuition fees.
“This an opportunity to experience what it means to attend a full campus. It’s still close to home and it’s still affordable. It is still within reach. They can commute back and forth, make use of the facilities as much as they like, and then go back home, share their experience,” Anyfanti told the webinar’s audience.
Being a member of the Ciudad del Saber, Anyfanti noted, provides an ecosystem of real “connectivity and engagement”, connecting with so many different entities and institutions – and students have access to all of those resources.
“It’s a solid foundation that provides an opportunity for growth,” she urged.
