Education is one of the three pillars of the EENSAT project. The aim of the education pillar is that at the end of the project, the three public universities have instituted the academic and organizational capacity. Furthermore, the aim is to deliver graduate students and practitioners that contribute to a demand-driven, gender sensitive and market oriented approach towards food security, making use of the opportunities provided by GI science.
One of the activities is to support the advancement of the relevant curricula in higher education through the introduction of state of the art knowledge, techniques and practices.
The curriculum revision at MSc. level for the three Ethiopian Universities is ongoing and the first conclusions have been drawn. Taking into account the inputs provided by the partner universities, we have:
- mapped the situation for the relevant MSc. programmes at Mekelle, Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar Universities,
- identified the gaps in the current curricula and
- set priorities and needs to succeed a smooth run of the project.
In detail, the MSc. programmes of the three universities appear too diverse not only in terms of content but also in study load and quality of deliverables. Furthermore, the Remote Sensing and GI Science component is not equally represented in all programmes.
Regarding the didactics, the first round of curricula review shows that a big proportion of the learning outcomes are not designed up to an MSc. knowledge level and hence there is need for upgrading. The teaching, learning and assessment methods need to be reconsidered while a student centered teaching approach will be proposed. During a workshop with all partners the first week of June, the findings of the review were discussed and knowledge on curricula revision transferred. The aim is for the Ethiopian universities to have the capacity to conduct the revision of their curricula.
In parallel with the activities at MSc. level, the preparation for the design of the TVET courses has started. The descriptions of the Ethiopian Occupational Standards (EOS) have been collected and their contents are taken into account for the design of the TVET courses within the EENSAT context.
