The start of Modern Agri-Food Business training at Wollo University (supported by EUDiF)
Today I will be travelling to Dessie to offer a training at Wollo University starting from tomorrow. The training is part of a small EU supported project. The flight from Addis Ababa to Dessie that was to take off at 11:10AM is delayed, which spared me time for this blog.
Wollo University established in 2007 is one of the group of “second generation” universities. Recently it was severely damaged due to the conflict in the North and North Eastern Ethiopia but now seems fully operational.
We (4 colleagues and I) together with Wollo University initiated this project two years ago. So far, we have reviewed an existing curriculum of the university’s Agri Business MSc program, based on which the course that starts tomorrow (December 28) was developed. Besides, we have developed two other courses, which will be executed in February and April. A significant improvement to the university’s acadamic operations is its new Learning Management Systems (LMS) using the free and opensource Moodle platform that two of my colleagues have recently deployed, and which my colleague and I will use to deliver of our course.
A few of the highlights of the new training are:
- A good deal of the participants will be the academic staff, and they will be using the LMS “as a student" and will have the students’ perspective of using a modern LMS.
- The training of the course is aimed at knowledge co-creation; that is a significant departure from the traditional instructional approach.
- Local embeddedness will be central in the training. Meaning, the training will focus on applying the new knowledge to local circumstances, jobs-oriented training, and entrepreneurship.
- We will provide a separate training to a large number of the academic staff on the use of the LMS and help them publish their course materials online. This will be a major transition for Wollo University.
