An open seminar on Higher Education in Africa

We had a wonderful lecture about “New approaches to higher education in Africa: Example of University for Development Studies, Tamale” given by Prof. Kranjac-Berisavljevic(Prof.KB) on October 30.
At first, I would like to introduce the lecturer. Prof.KB is a professor of Agricultural Engineering at University for Development Studies (UDS), and had worked as a visiting scholar at Tokyo University.
In the lecture, she introduced current development situation of African tertiary education and challenges it is facing. She discussed about brain drain issues and comprehensive stakeholder engagement. And then, she raised University for Development Studies (UDS) as an example. The university was established to promote equitable socio-economic transformation of communities and it currently hosts about 20 000 students distributed over 4 campuses. To me, the most interesting part of the lecture was the Third Trimester Field Practical Programme (TTFPP). It is similar to OFW program of GSID, but giving more emphasis to field work. All students of UDDS spend first two trimesters in the classrooms and go to the filed within rural communities in the third trimester. The field work team composes of eight to ten students from different major lives and work together in the rural area under supervision from the university.
There were 11 GSID students participating in the seminar. It was a very valuable, meaningful time for us, especially for some students who are really interested in African study.

On the way to Nagoya station she told me it was the last day of her stay in Japan. I hope it could be one of her good memories in Japan.

P.S Thank LiuJing senpai for taking these nice photos.