Migrating a professional field of study in a multi-institutional partnership: facilitators’ experience in the competence-based curriculum development process

  • Proscovia Namubiru Ssentamu Uganda Management Institute, Uganda
  • Betty Akullu Ezati Makerere University, Uganda
  • Ronald Bisaso Makerere University, Uganda
  • Elias Pekkola University of Tampere, Finland
  • Seppo Hölttä University of Tampere, Finland
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18543/tjhe-1(2)-2014pp405-427
Keywords: competence-based curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, training programmes, quality assurance, partnership, internationalisation, infusion, higher education

Abstract

With the urge to Africanise the curriculum following colonisation, many African countries are still wary of the educational initiatives from the developed countries. However, with the clear curriculum design and development guidelines provided by various national Quality Assurance bodies, African countries need not fear migrating curricula from developed countries. Drawing from the workshop experiences, authors of this paper illustrate the steps involved in migrating, contextualising and adapting a professional field of study in a multi-institutional partnership, with particular focus on the competence-based curriculum design and development process. The process of migrating higher education (HE) Administration, Leadership and Management curriculum taught at the University of Tampere (Finland) to a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education Leadership and Management (PGDHELM) curriculum at Uganda Management Institute (UMI) in partnership with the Makerere University and the University of Helsinki involved undertaking a needs assessment, training of trainers and adapting the programme to the UMI context. The training of trainers provided opportunity for the trainees to reflect and generate information on the status of HE leadership and management in Uganda. The curriculum was institutionalised by aligning it to the vision, mission and profile of UMI in the context of the existing internal and external Quality Assurance frameworks. This paper underscores the importance of involving stakeholders, taking into account national and institutional requirements in all the steps when migrating an academic curriculum.

Published online: 4 July 2014

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Author Biographies

Proscovia Namubiru Ssentamu, Uganda Management Institute, Uganda

Proscovia Namubiru Ssentamu is a senior quality assurance officer and lecturer at Uganda Management Institute. Was previously, a lecturer in the Department of Curriculum Studies, School of Education, Makerere University for 14 years. Main research areas include curriculum design, development and evaluation; pedagogy; education evaluation and assessment; quality assurance; teacher professional growth and development; cross-cutting curricular issues in education, in which she has also undertaken consultancy work for the Uganda Ministry of Education and Sports, Uganda National Council for Higher Education, USAID, the Belgian Technical Cooperation, Netherlands Initiative for Capacity Development in Higher Education and several public and private higher education institutions in Uganda and beyond. She holds a doctorate of philosophy in Education, specialising in teacher education, from Bayreuth University, Germany.

Betty Akullu Ezati, Makerere University, Uganda

Betty Akullu Ezati holds a doctorate in Education. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Foundations and Curriculum Studies and Dean, School of Education, Makerere University. Her main research areas are teaching and learning in higher education, teacher education and teachers’ professional development, gender and education, indigenous knowledge and education in conflict. Her doctorate focused on gender issues in higher education. She has undertaken several consultancies related to gender and education, teacher education and education in conflict situations.

Ronald Bisaso, Makerere University, Uganda

Ronald Bisaso is a Senior Lecturer in the East African School of Higher Education Studies and Development (EASHESD) at Makerere University. Currently, he is the Coordinator for teaching and graduate research in EASHESD. He is also the Project Manager, Strengthening Institutional Capacity for Higher Education Leadership and Management in sub-Saharan Africa (LMUU II, 2013-2015), in a multi-institutional partnership comprising Uganda Management Institute, Makerere University, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Helsinki and University of Tampere. He has taught higher education courses related to policy, leadership and management, globalization and internationalization, and ICT in management. His research interests include higher education leadership and management in Sub-Saharan Africa, higher education and socio-economic development, organizational change, and capacity building in higher education organizations. He holds a doctorate of philosophy in Administrative Science specializing in Higher Education Management from the University of Tampere in Finland.

Elias Pekkola, University of Tampere, Finland

Elias Pekkola, M.Sc. (Admin.), M.Soc.Sc. is a university instructor for administrative science at the University of Tampere. He has worked in several development projects in Africa on curriculum development and development of management practices. His research interests include academic work, academic profession, higher education policy and administration.

Seppo Hölttä, University of Tampere, Finland

Seppo Hölttä is a Professor of Higher Education Administration at the School of Management of the University of Tampere, Finland, and the founder of the Higher Education Group. He is an economist and in addition to his scholarly experience, he has been working in administrative positions and in the roles of a consultant with issues of institutional development in Finland and elsewhere. He has worked with higher education development institutions in various African countries for over twenty years. He has trained numerous young African experts of higher education governance, leadership and management in the international Master and PhD programmes he has led. He is leader of the project Strengthening Institutional Capacity for Higher Education Leadership and Management in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Published
2014-07-04
How to Cite
Ssentamu, Proscovia Namubiru, Betty Akullu Ezati, Ronald Bisaso, Elias Pekkola, and Seppo Hölttä. 2014. “Migrating a Professional Field of Study in a Multi-Institutional Partnership: Facilitators’ Experience in the Competence-Based Curriculum Development Process”. Tuning Journal for Higher Education 1 (2), 405-27. https://doi.org/10.18543/tjhe-1(2)-2014pp405-427.
Issue
Vol. 1 No. 2 (2014): Competence-based learning: a global perspective
Section
Articles

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