DAKAR: Multi-discipline doctoral reform

The University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar has created seven doctoral schools with a multi-discipline emphasis, under reforms introducing the Bologna process which the university started planning in 2003, reported Le Soleil of Dakar.

The seven new schools will cover the fields of water, and quality and uses of water; life, health and environmental sciences; physics, chemistry and life, universe and engineering sciences; studies in mankind and society; mathematics and computer science; art, cultures and civilisations; and law, political and economic sciences and management.

Presenting the new system, which started last month, Research Director Professor Bhen Toghebaye said the aims of the reform were to "train doctoral students not only to replace teachers and researchers, but also to innervate all economic activities - producing high level specialists with a multidisciplinary culture who are highly educated and therefore adaptable, and to harmonise the organisation of PhD studies with international systems".

"Today, research is multidisciplinary and placed at the interface of fields of activity," said Toghebaye. "Those who win Nobel prizes are not confined to their specific field of research; they combine several skills to produce work that is at the service of the whole community," he was quoted as saying in Sud Quotidien of Dakar.

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