Pan African University to craft strategic plan

26 January 2018

The Pan African University (PAU) is developing a strategic plan to help guide its activities over the next five years and identify key priorities, including resource mobilisation and how to offer relevant training.

The continental university has hired a team of external consultants, led by higher education consultant Dr Fred Hayward from the University of Massachusetts, that will seek the views of those involved in day to day activities of the university in all its four institutes.

A quality strategic plan would help PAU manage the challenges affecting institutions in Africa’s higher education sector, including inadequate funding, Hayward said when he visited the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya.

This comes as PAU institutes continue to review their curricula and academic programmes, with the JKUAT-hosted Institute of Basic Sciences Technology and Innovation (PAUSTI) boosting its programmes on offer by an additional two.

The institute will offer new programmes including an MSc and PhD in data science, both due to be rolled out in 2018, according to PAUSTI director Gabriel Magoma.

Already the Institute for Life and Earth Sciences (PAULESI), hosted by the University of Ibadan Nigeria, has taken the lead by offering four masters programmes including an MSc in veterinary medicine with two options of avian medicine and vaccine production.

Also added is an MSc in phytochemistry and medicinal plant research, and an MA programme in sports management and policy development.

At present, PAU offers programmes in 37 fields of specialisation, including 22 masters and 15 PhDs, with a total of seven new programmes of study set to be launched during the 2017/2018 academic year. – Compiled by Maina Waruru

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