Pedal Category: Our Universities

University of Ibadan is arguably one of the most interconnected universities in Africa. The university has established several bilateral and multi-lateral linkages with universities in a number of countries including: UK, US, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, and India. It also maintains active partnerships with several universities in more than 13 African countries, examples are: Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA); African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) and INDEPTH (Capacity Strengthening & Training for Longitudinal Data Harmonization, Management & Analysis). Through the University of Ibadan, PedaL will leverage these partnerships for upscaling its activities and strengthening its impact. Besides, the university operates a successful mobility scheme: Postgraduate Academic Mobility for African Physician – Scientists (PAMAPS) implements academic mobility among higher education institutions in Africa for a 48-month period for 16 staff and 72 students each year. It has also established itself as a training hub for CARTA’s collaborative education capacity strengthening programmes with facilitators drawn from several countries in Africa, Europe, and North America. PedaL will be anchored in the 23 social science programmes at the University, and it will draw lessons from the mobility scheme as well as those specific to offering training in a hub to mitigate risks and consolidate its successes.

In 2016, the University Of Ghana was ranked highest in Africa outside of South Africa by Times Higher Education. It took the 125th position out of the top 300 universities in 50 countries including China, Brazil, Russia, and India. The university has a strong teaching staff establishment, diverse teaching and learning resources, and good infrastructure that other universities within the network will benefit from. It will also play a key role in mentoring other universities within the network to improve the quality of their programmes. It has a strong south-south and south-north collaborations with a number of fully funded doctoral programmes. It is therefore well placed for introducing pedagogical training for doctoral students. As a leader among peers, it will facilitate access to PedaL in its 18 graduate social science programmes, and to similar programmes in other universities in Ghana and West Africa as a whole. Besides, existing linkages to other universities will also facilitate replication of PedaL, for example, the three-way partnership between the University of Cambridge, University of Ghana and Makerere University which focuses on developing post-doctoral academic excellence in the Social Sciences and Humanities at Makerere University.

Established in 1970, the University of Dar es Salaam is the largest university in Tanzania. The University is, by and large, still the leading University in Tanzania in terms of repute and demand. It has the largest pool of professors and PhDs, the highest enrolment of postgraduate students, and is a major source of the workforce for the other Universities in the country. Academics at the university are regularly called upon to participate in formulating policies and guidelines that are critical in paving strategies for the achievement of important national and regional goals; are widely represented in many organizations’ Boards as non-executive directors and committee members having been invited to participate due to their expertise in their areas of specialties; and have been appointed to lead in government-related positions.

The University of Dar es Salaam is one of the eight flagship universities in Africa along with Ibadan, Ghana, Nairobi, Botswana, Cape Town, Eduardo Mondlane, Makerere, Mauritius, and Nelson Mandela. The university is also a member of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA). Through these positive associations, the university will influence the uptake of PedaL in other leading universities on the continent. At the local level, the University has 15 graduate training programmes in the social sciences which will anchor PedaL and facilitate replication to other programmes within the university, and to other universities in Tanzania. The University of Da es Salaam also offers a signature pedagogy through the Uongozi Institute Program that has together students from the University of Dar es Salaam, University of Nairobi, Makerere University and students from North American Universities to develop leadership skills successfully. Graduates have taken up leadership positions within the continent and abroad. In Uongozi, students are exposed to a series of lecture panels hosted by leading intellectuals and officials from the public service sector, the private sector, and the civil society sector. They also undertake field trips to several educational field sites. Partners will work collaboratively to integrate these elements into PedaL.

Uganda Martyrs University (UMU) is a private university affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda. It is licensed by the Uganda National Council for Higher Education. UMU consists of seven faculties, one institute, four centers, five departments, and two schools. As of January 2015, total student enrollment exceeded 5,000. Of these, about 1,500 students were residential, while nearly 3,000 students were enrolled in UMU’s distance learning programs. The number of staff members was over 400

Though comparatively small in size (enrolment estimated at 6,000); Uganda Martyrs University has attracted a number of universities as well as private and public sector organizations to partner around program design and delivery. These include: University of Notre Dame, USA; University for Peace (Costa Rica); Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden); Mekelle University (Ethiopia); University of Western Cape (South Africa); Interdisciplinary Centre of Excellence for Sports Science and Development (ICESSD); and, Children Peace Initiative (Kenya). Its programs are designed collaboratively with communities, recognized for their relevance and leverage international resources to address local needs. Of particular importance will be the University’s teaching and learning methods that stress collaboration and ongoing cooperation with communities; as well as methods of identification, development, and adaptation of knowledge from the fields to the classrooms. The University also represents the private sector which is playing an increasingly significant role in expanding access to tertiary education. Uganda Martyrs University will, therefore, extend the outcomes of PedaL into the private sector and among private universities and provide impetus for commercialization, for example, this may provoke the emergence of private initiatives that adapt PedaL to design and offer short courses for developing pedagogical competencies among teaching staff.

Egerton University is the oldest institution of higher learning in Kenya. It was founded as a Farm School in 1939 by Lord Maurice Egerton of Tatton, a British national who settled in Kenya in the 1920s. In 1950, the School was upgraded to an Agricultural College offering diploma programmes. The Egerton Agricultural College Ordinance was enacted in 1955. In 1979, the Government of Kenya and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded a major expansion of the institution. In 1986, Egerton Agricultural College was gazetted as a constituent college of the University of Nairobi. The following year, 1987, marked the establishment of Egerton University through an Act of Parliament.

The University has accumulated experience in using technology-enhanced learning to support program delivery. It has established a dedicated centre to support E-learning that is self-financed. Through this project, a number of online courses modules have been developed, 100 members of teaching staff have been trained to deliver digital content and engage students on virtual platforms while 120 students are enrolled annually. Additionally, Egerton hosts the Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL), a digital collection of research journals for agriculture and related sciences that is searchable offline. Egerton provides best practices for integrating and institutionalizing IT to support teaching and learning within the local context from which valuable lessons will be drawn to inform the design and implementation of PedaL. Egerton is also a centre of excellence in agriculture education that has attracted massive funding from the MasterCard Foundation. It will, therefore, provide a solid link for replicating PedaL beyond the social sciences, in programmes of agriculture and related earth sciences offered by 60 universities within the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM). This will increase access to innovative teaching and learning methods on the continent dramatically.