From CEPIB to UPI-ONM: Thirty years at the service of excellence

On the chessboard of higher education in Benin, the International Polytechnic University Obiang Nguema Mbasogo figures prominently. (UPI-ONM). Created in 1992, this mecca of knowledge has climbed different steps to build a brand image here and elsewhere.Many know UPI-ONM but few remember CEPIB/Training. There is reason for this because it is a time that the least 20 years cannot know. Today's thirty-year-old adults were little aware of their own existence at the time when the Benin International Polytechnic Education Complex (CEPIB Formation), saw the light of day in 1992. Indeed, like a piece of plant well cared for by its gardener, the venerable and ingenious Valère Kakaï Glèlè, UPI-ONM has not escaped the law of natural selection. That of the very resistant mustard seed. From the midst of geopolitical brambles and unfair competition, the university was able to emerge to impose itself, against all odds, as a reference in professional training. From afar, it is remarkable among the forest of local universities due to its notoriety and the number of executives trained. From a site, the Benin International Polytechnic Teaching Complex, like a baobab, took root in Benin with five (05) University campuses scattered across Parakou, Porto-Novo, Abomey and Cotonou. In the same dynamic, its radiance extends under other skies.

The mark of know-how

Only in a few years, we note a multiplication of training courses, partnerships and international recognition. Today, the university of Valère Kakaï Glèlè has a pawn on the street. From banking to finance through accounting, agronomy or computer science, Upi-Onm concentrates seventeen types of licenses and 15 different masters. The first promotion of patented senior technicians (BTS) released in Bordeaux, France in 1994. In 2005, a memorandum of understanding relating to training for BAC diplomas + 3 and BAC + 5 is signed with the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Toulouse in France followed by an agreement with the Free Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management of the Catholic University of Lille (UCL) relating to the relocation of the postgraduate diploma.

In 2006, CEPIB Formation became the International Polytechnic University of Benin (UPIB). Three partnerships followed. The first with the Faculty of Economics and Management of the University (FASEG) of Abomey-Calavi and the second with the Banque Régionale de Solidarité́ (BRS). The University of Riverside in California in the United States is also forming a partnership. More than twenty UPIB diplomas are accredited by the African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education (LEGS). This recognition sets UPIB apart from the rest. A new era will open from 2013. Renamed, UPIB becomes Université́ Polytechnique Internationale Dr Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (UPI-ONM). Always ahead of its competitors, UPI-ONM integrates, in 2009, the Virtual World University (Stormy) bringing together most of Canada's universities, the United States, from England, from Paris, from Spain, from China and Mexico etc.. It’s actually Valère Kakaï Glèlè, the man of challenges, who is the President of the African Order of Grandes Écoles and Universities (Stormy). UPI-ONM and its CEO have become a world heritage. From Cotonou to Montreal via Parakou, the echoes of his fame resonate and command admiration.

Arnaud ACAKPO (Coll)