CEDAT Hosts the Third Workshop on Enriching Engineering Education Programmes at Makerere University

The College of Engineering, Design, Art, and Technology (CEDAT) at Makerere University hosted its Third Workshop on Enriching Engineering Education in Sub-Saharan Africa on 12 – 13th April 2018. The workshop was conducted with support from the Royal Academy of Engineering of United Kingdom. The general aim of the support is to enhance Higher Education Partnerships for Sub-Sahara Africa.

The workshop was opened by the Vice Chancellor of Makerere University, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe who emphasized the issue of having a stronger collaboration in the region in order to improve engineering education. He said that engineering education is at the heart of social economic development and hence requires a concerted effort by all stakeholders. The Principal of CEDAT, Prof. Henry Alinaitwe, welcomed the Vice Chancellor and all others to the workshop which attracted participants from Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, United Kingdom and of course Uganda the host country. The University of Leeds is the lead partner from United Kingdom.

The focus of the programme is to have graduates who are better prepared to address the challenges in society.  Among other objectives, university – industry partnerships are strengthened to enhance Problem Based Learning (PBL). The PBL approach involves students in multi-disciplinary teams identifying and addressing a challenge in the community and working together to find solutions with the lecturers as mentors. With PBL, the role of lecturers changes from being the ultimate source and transmitters of knowledge to facilitators of creation and application of knowledge. While the role of students evolves from being passive recipients of knowledge to active creators of knowledge that is applied to solve real-life problems. The main industry partners in the collaboration are National Water and Sewerage Corporation, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation, Uganda Electricity Generation Company limited, Uganda National Bureau of Standards and Uganda National Roads Authority.

In addition, the workshop addressed competence based curricula; peer learning and assessment; accreditation of engineering programmes; credit transfer systems; and Innovation and translation.

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Press Release: Third Workshop on Enriching Engineering Education Programmes at Makerere University

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