Regional PhD (Soil and Water Management) Programme at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA): Lessons and Challenges

A special seminar will be presented by Abel K. Kaaya, Department of Soil Science, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania, titled Regional PhD (Soil and Water Management) Programme at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA): Lessons and Challenges. This seminar will be held in 333C Kottman Hall. Dr. Kaaya is sponsored by Ohio State International Programs in Agriculture, The Innovative Agricultural Research Initiative, a USAID food security project fostering cooperation between US and Tanzanian Institutions led by Ohio State.

SUA with support from the Soil Health Programme of Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) launched a Regional PhD in Soil and Water Management (SWM) with course work at SUA in 2010. This PhD programme was developed with the goal of improving and strengthening regional human resources and institutional capacity in impact-oriented research in soil and water management in the Eastern, Central, and Southern African (ECSA) region. This was after realization by the Vice Chancellors of RUFORUM member Universities that the existing PhD programmes are conducted by research only, and hence they lack a broad perspective, and have relatively limited analytical rigor compared to similar programmes with coursework. Given the regional need to develop a coursework and research based PhD programme in SWM, SUA was mandated by RUFORUM member universities to develop and host this programme on the basis of its comparative advantage in human and other resources vis a vis other universities in the region.

This programme was designed with the idea of producing competent graduates in the ECSA region, specialized in the areas of Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM), SWM and Agricultural Land Resource Planning.

In this seminar, the expected PhD (SWM) graduate competences, the programme structure and implementation will be presented for discussion. Also, the Lessons learned and challenges faced during the implementation of the SUA PhD (SWM) Programme and proposed strategies to overcome the challenges will be shared.

More information is available from Brian Slater (slater.39@osu.edu). Click here to view the announcement.