QAM Project Activities Updates

2009-11-16T07:13:00.001-08:00

Activities to date

1. Inception planning meeting

The Quality Assurance Management Project Inception workshop was held from the 23rd to the 25th of February 2009 at the Imperial Resort Beach Hotel in Entebbe Uganda. Please download the inception report.

Quality Assurance Systems in selected universities of Europe

A consultant was engaged by RUFORUM to carry out a scoping study on Quality Assurance Systems in Graduate Education in selected European Universities to learn lessons for strengthening RUFORUM supported Graduate Programmes in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. The Scoping Study had two major objectives (1) To undertake institutional analysis of the quality assurance systems in the University of Helinski (Finland), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden), University of Copenhagen (Denmark) and Wageningen University (The Netherlands), (2) To engage managers and other relevant personnel from the selected European Universities for purposes of initiating collaborative activities with RUFORUM member universities. As an output, the consultant produced a report to RUFORUM in March 2009 detailing how the two above activities were undertaken and the key issues and lessons. Please download this report here.

QAM Project Progress Report

The first six months Quality Assurance Management Project report was submitted in May 2009 to the ACP Secretariat. Please download it here.

QAM Work Plan

2009-11-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

The QAM Work Plan will be posted here....

About the Quality Assurance Management Project

2009-11-03T01:14:00.000-08:00

Strengthening Capacity of Universities in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa to offer Quality Graduate Programmes

ACP-EU Cooperation Programme in Higher Education - Project 9ACP RPR 12# 33

This project is funded under the European Union supported EDULINK programme.

The Project Coordinator is the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) – Kampala

Implementing Partners

Egerton University (EU) - Kenya
Makerere University – Uganda
University of Malawi – Malawi
University of Zambia (UNZA) - Zambia
Montpelier Sup Agro

Associate Partners

Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA)
Inter-University Council of East Africa (IUCEA)
Network of European Agricultural (Tropically and sub tropically oriented) Universities and Scientific complexes Related with Agricultural development (NATURA)

The duration of the project is 36 Months

EU Co-funding
EUR 499,715.68

Total Budget
EUR 587,900.80

Contact Person
Prof. Adipala Ekwamu
Regional Co-ordinator
Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM),
Tel: +256 414535939
Fax: +256 414543153

E-mail: secretariat@ruforum.org;

Background

The action is building institutional capacity for human resource development in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) region. In the ECSA region, the capacity to train high quality human resources by universities is weak with no/less attractive PhD programmes. Most of the PhD training where available, is largely by research, which limits analytical rigor and broad perspective, which is normally imparted through course work. This problem is compounded by high attrition rates of qualified staff (estimated at 25,000 per annum in sub-Saharan Africa), the over-aging population of experienced national experts with the majority in senior positions (estimated at 65% by FARA) over retirement age or due to retire in the next five years which creates an attractive opportunity for professional development of the young. There are also inadequacies in resource use, and limited funding. This action creates opportunity to build capacity to train high quality human resources by HEIs in the ECSA through the introduction of focused coursework and other learning opportunities (screened by a vigorous quality assessment programme).

The Partners (and Associates) in this action propose to strengthen the capacity of ECSA universities to train high quality PhD graduates, by mounting short regional courses in critical cross-cutting areas to broaden analytical skills and development perspectives of graduate students. The action seeks to strengthen teaching and management skills of lecturers, university managers and policy makers. It also supports training in other areas not efficiently addressed by individual national universities.

The regional approach seeks to address critical factors affecting graduate training in agricultural education and research in the region specifically:

• Limited funding for graduate training by providing scholarships and training in research grant proposal writing

• Weak research infrastructure by marshalling resources for high quality training through shared programmes especially in emergent sciences and development paradigms

• Limited access to other knowledge centres by linking African universities to other global knowledge centres to benefit from advances in science and technology

• Weak national programmes by mobilising regional scientists to engage in research that generates regional public goods.

This action addresses a number of critical problems affecting successful graduate programme implementation in the ECSA HEIs. These problems relate to inadequacies of resources (human and infrastructure) and emergent/new development challenges as a result of paradigm shifts in development processes and advances in science and technology.

Overall Objective

The overall objective of the action is to enhance capacities of universities in ECSA to conduct high quality and relevant graduate training, especially at PhD level. The purpose of this action is to strengthen capacity for shared training, quality assurance and knowledge management for lesson up-scaling. The critical auxiliary problems include issues related to training such as credits transfer systems, quality assurance mechanisms, resource mobilization, competitiveness of the graduate training programmes and need for new teaching delivery and management methods that emphasise facilitation and team building.

Target Groups

The action targets three groups namely:

• Teaching staff in the departments that offer PhD graduate programmes, the majority of whom had their training locally and went through the programme largely by research

• PhD students from the ECSA HEIs.

• ECSA HEIs management staffs who head the institutions and the departments that handle graduate programmes.

• Policy makers in the relevant ministries that support education and agriculture.

The action benefits several sectors and institutions through development of institutional and human resource capacity

Results

The project is intended to generate three broad result areas aimed at enhancing the quality and capacity of ECSA HEIs to effectively and efficiently conduct quality graduate training.

Result Area 1:

Quality assurance mechanism in ECSA HEIs strengthened. A quality assurance system is to be developed to assure high quality of the graduates as well as their relevance to the region. The system will be developed in a step-wise manner with lessons captured for up-scaling within the participating institutions and out-scaling to other RUFORUM member universities.

Result Area 2:

Capacities and competencies of human resources involved in the implementation of training programmes strengthened. This aims at enhancing specific competencies of the university staff and the PhD students to effectively and efficiently implement and or engage in the training programmes. Competence development are being implemented using identified short courses conducted at regional level using a synchronised and distinct process that provides for lesson capture and up-scaling within the region.

Result Area 3:

Regional and international partnerships for efficient and effect graduate training in the ECSA HEIs enhanced. A partnership arrangement with universities in the north (Europe) and non-RUFORUM member universities in the region has been developed to tap into the global knowledge for training of the staff and students.