A five-day Curriculum Development Workshop has been held at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) as part of the Climate-Smart Agropreneurship education for jobs and sustainability in Western Africa (AgrBIZZ) project.
AgrBIZZ is a partnership between the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, Hame University of Applied Sciences (HAMK) in Finland, University of Buea and the University of Bamenda in Cameroon, the University for Development Studies and the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, and RUFORUM in Uganda.
Its overall objective is to strengthen partner HEIs' capacity to provide work-life relevant and inclusive higher education for societal and environmental development.
The AgrBIZZ curriculum development workshop is aimed at enhancing understanding and practical integration of Problem-Based Learning (PBL), Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), and Entrepreneurship in agricultural education to ensure that students graduate with skillsets that make them prepared for the world of work.
The event, held at the Sasakawa Conference Centre, engaged academic staff in the participatory process of curriculum review and development of agricultural programmes across the partner HEIs in Western Africa.
Participants at the Design Thinking and Innovation Hub
The workshop, which forms part of an ongoing 3-year AgrBIZZ project which is co-funded by the European Union.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Project Coordinator, Dr. Eija Laitinen from HAMK, said “the project wants students to have a dignified decent life.”
According to her, the general aim of the curriculum development workshop was to exchange institutional experiences, challenges, and effective practices in curriculum revision and pedagogical innovation.
She added that academic staff from universities in West Africa would be engaged in the participatory process of curriculum review and development of programmes across partner higher education institutions.
Through the curriculum development, students would work with the skills they had acquired after graduation.
Project Coordinator, Dr. Eija Laitinen from HAMK
The UCC Local Coordinator of the Project, Prof. Samuel Kwesi Ndzebah Dadzie, in his remarks, indicated that there was the needtha need to harmonise agricultural education in partner West African universities to be intentional about climate-smart agriculture and entrepreneurship using a student-centred Problem-Based Learning approach to enable students to generate business solutions even while on campus.
He said the use of PBL would produce competent graduates who would be problem solvers.
"Throughout the workshop, we are happy to emphasise Climate-Smart Agropreneurship, using the PBL approach in our curricula," he added.
He maintained that through the project, students would acquire various employable skills to enable them to become entrepreneurs.
The Provost of the College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, Prof. Rofela Combey, who described the workshop as timely, noted that training students with entrepreneurial soft skills and making them conscious of sustaining the environment through climate-smart agriculture had become an existential necessity in Ghana and most African countries.
Provost of the College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, Prof. Rofela Combey
She expressed excitement that the Project was also to ensure African students possess not only technical competence but also critical thinking, problem-solving, communication skills, and, crucially, ethical grounding
Present at the workshop were the Dean of the School of Agriculture, Prof. De-Graft Acquah, the Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Prof. Martin Bosompem, and the representative of the Director of the Directorate of Research, Innovation and Consultancy, Prof. Francis Annor.
Source: Documentation and Information Section-UCC