CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT AND

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CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION IN
HIGHER AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION SOME LESSONS
FROM THE SASAKAWA INITIATIVE IN SELECTED
UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
By
  Dr. Moses M. Zinnah Programme Coordinator for
West/Central Africa (Winrock International/Sasakaw
a)
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1.0 Introduction
Curriculum development or transformation is one
of the critical challenges of any successful
institution of higher education. Innovative and
demand-driven curriculum enables a college or
university to remain relevant and to be one step
ahead of its rivals, set trends and lead change
in order to survive.
The pressure on higher agricultural education
institutions to develop demand-driven curricula
or to reform and adapt existing curricula to meet
the rapidly changing needs of society is no
exception.
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• 2.0 Sasakawa Africa Fund for Extension
  Education (SAFE) - Launched in 1992 by Sasakawa
  Africa Association (SAA).
• It assists selected African universities/college
  s to develop relevant formal in-service diploma
  and degree programmes for mid-career agricultural
  extension staff.
• Encourages and supports networking among
  participating SAFE institutions.
• SAFEs guiding principle is experiential
  learning, with particular emphasis on extended
  off-campus practical training programmes in the
  students work environment. These off-campus
  training programmes are called Supervised
  Enterprise Projects (SEPs).
• SAFE programmes currently exit in nine selected
  universities and colleges in Benin, Burkina Faso,
  Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania and
  Uganda.

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• Curriculum Development Approach of the SAFE
• Initiative
• The SAFE curriculum revitalization initiative
• involves six essential steps that are intended as
  a
• guide to help universities and colleges in Africa
  that
• are in the process of developing or reforming
  their
• agricultural extension curricula.
• These flexible steps are only a guide (not a
  prescription)
• that could be adapted by other universities and
  colleges in
• developing demand-driven curricula.

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Step1 Informal dialogue among key stakeholders
Step 2 Clarifying common vision and mission
Step 3 Formal agricultural training needs
assessment
Step 4 Workshop for stakeholders
Step 5 Development of a responsive,
demand-driven curriculum
Step 6 Establishing strong network among
institutions and agencies
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4.0 Some Lessons From the SAFE Curricula
Development and Reform Initiative
 1.    Curriculum development or reform is a
process not an event. It is an on-going
process. Therefore, colleges and universities
should always make plans for continuous reviews
and revisions of their curricula to meet the
changing needs of society.
 2.   Curriculum development/reform is rewarding.
If training programmes meet the needs of the
society, the visibility of the training
institution is enhanced, both locally and
externally.
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 3.    Training programmes at the undergraduate
and lower levels should focus on generalist
education rather than a specialist orientation.
Results from numerous studies in different parts
of the world, including a recent study in 2001
in Ghana, point to the need for generalist
training at the undergraduate and lower levels.
This ensures a strong broad-based knowledge in
other disciplinary areas and also enhances the
employment opportunities for graduates.
4.   It is important to meld together the
various subject matter disciplines in the
faculty/school/college (especially the social
sciences which tend to be relegated to the second
or third place in priority) in
multi-disciplinary manner. Most of the problems
that communities face are multi-faceted and
therefore, require multi-disciplinary approaches
to solving them.
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5.    It is important to keep in mind that a
good curriculum is only as good as its
implementation. Therefore, to ensure that a
good curriculum achieves its objectives, it is
important to pay particular attention to, among
other things, the following points
   Attract, recruit and retain qualified and
experienced core staff to nurture and implement
the curriculum. This includes competitive
salaries, flexibility to manage time and
produce independent research, opportunity to
attend professional conferences/workshops, and
more importantly transparency in the promotion
procedures. There should also be opportunities
for lecturers to pursue advanced training,
especially at the Ph.D. level.
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•     Emphasize student-centred, teaching-learning.
  Move the responsibility for learning from the
  lecturers to the students the lecturers become
  facilitators, assisting the students to reach
  their individual goals. This sounds easy in
  theory, but it is difficult in practice because
  it demands a radical change from what currently
  prevails in most universities and colleges in
  Africa.
• Provide regular in-house seminars for teaching
  staff on innovative teaching-learning methods
  that promote effective student-centred learning.

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      Place emphasis on practical, experiential
learning. This will enable students to translate
the vast knowledge gained into a basis for
decision-making and understand both its
relevance and inadequacies for addressing issues
faced in rural farming communities or for
developing entrepreneurial projects as a
teaching tool in starting and running their own
enterprises after gradation.
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    Provide basic instructional facilities
(i.e., library, reference books, journals,
computer and computer software) to foster
effective teaching-learning processes.
        Use multiple innovative student
assessment techniques to capture the diverse
learning styles of learners. The assessment
should include a balanced combination of
conventional end-of-class examinations (with
more emphasis on analysis and application, than
on recall), and other innovative methods such as
case studies, reports of individual and/or small
group projects, term papers, oral presentations,
debates, peer reviews, and employer assessments
after attachments.
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6. Forge formal network with employers,
public and private sectors, NGOs, farmers and
others, both within and outside the country,
that have a stake in the agricultural education.

7. Devise ways and means to minimize
territoriality among the various departments
within the faculty or college because it limits
the ability to design innovative curriculum to
address specific evolving needs. Territoriality
also results in unnecessary competition for
credit hours in the total credit hours required
for students to graduate.
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8. Acknowledge that by the time a student
completes a typical 4-year agriculture degree
programme in a university, most of what he/she
has learnt is obsolete. Therefore, it is
important to emphasize critical/systems thinking
skills and place more emphasis on life-long and
experiential learning approaches to enable to
learn how to learn. Students should also be
encouraged to take more responsibility for their
learning, and to develop skills in working in
teams or groups composed of diverse individuals
to enhance horizontal and mutual sharing of
experiences.
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• 9. Document impact of the curriculum (on
  graduates, employers, the training institution
  itself, etc.) and share the information of the
  impact with stakeholders. It helps them to know
  the relevance of the training and to support the
  programme.

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• 10. Last, but not the least
• There must be committed leaders who are capable
  of formulating clear vision and mission for
  training and cultivating a flexible
  interdisciplinary approach to education in
  addressing the complex and changing needs of the
  agricultural sector.
• Curriculum cannot be implemented by a Vice
  Chancellor or Dean acting alone. There must be a
  team working together toward a common goal and
  this should be coupled with the necessary
  resources to implementation and sustain the
  demand-driven nature of the curriculum.

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To conclude I urge the leadership and teaching
staff of the University of The Gambia to consider
the lessons of the SAFE programme in the
on-going discussions on developing a new
demand-driven undergraduate degree curriculum in
agriculture. One of the greatest benefits of
this Participatory Curriculum Development
Workshop is the opportunity to get diverse views
from stakeholders engaged in the agricultural
sector in The Gambia. The University of The
Gambia should take advantage of their
contributions in developing the new agriculture
curriculum to ensure its responsiveness and
relevance.
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!