GKI Jump-starts East African Education Regional Harmonization
An advertisement for secondary
education in Tanzania demonstrates
the
urgent need for qualified
teachers in the region.
Those who attend university in the United States might cringe when hearing the word "tuition." It conjures up images of large amounts of student loans waiting to be paid back. But in Tanzania, "tuition" has a different connotation, yet one that leaves the listener no less concerned: "When we use it in Swahili, it is something that the student has to pay for that is outside of classes. For some teachers it is a big business. To good maths teachers, it is an even bigger business. During vacation, students travel to look for good maths teachers…for hundreds of kilometers sometimes," explained an interviewed NGO administrator in Tanzania's education sector. The respondent was one of more than 120 teachers, examiners, policymakers, students, and others interviewed to form the basis of a large-scale research and strategy-setting initiative currently undertaken by the Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI).
The challenge of extraordinary school fees levied by some teachers is just one of thousands of insights the Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI) gained while researching secondary mathematics and science secondary education in the East Africa region. There the pre-tertiary teaching and learning context is complex. Various difficult and interrelated challenges plague the system rendering learning outcomes suboptimal and science literacy limited across much of society. Yet, the region is also characterized by hope, and by a cadre of individuals working tirelessly to overcome these obstacles together.
Featured Collaborator: Fred Kabi
Fred Kabi:
LINK Challenger
and
GKI's Featured Collaborator
Meet Fred Kabi, our first-ever featured Collaborator.
We think Fred is special. A senior lecturer and researcher at Makerere University in Uganda, Fred has successfully collaborated with numerous development agencies, universities, and fellow scientists. To date, his partnerships span the United Nations World Food Program, Heifer International, the World Bank, Norway's Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), and the University of Copenhagen, among others.
It's not just his participatory approach, record of collaboration with university, research, and industry, and general enthusiasm that we think makes Fred unique: It is the fact that he works tirelessly to address the agricultural development challenges of the nation he calls home, Uganda. There, agricultural output can be an issue of life or death, the difference between health and the chance at a better life or vicious cycles of poverty and hunger. In 2005, 75.6% of Ugandans lived on less than $2 per day and in 2006 Uganda's child malnutrition was nearly 39%. To combat pervasive hunger and to improve livelihoods for the most vulnerable farmers, increased animal protein production is needed. Until now, most farmers have attempted to meet this need through dairy animals while ignoring beef. Dairy farmers often think bulls are expensive to raise and would require feed intended for milk-producing cows. They sell bull calves cheaply or destroy them for pet food and allocate scarce feed resources to heifers. The result: Uganda is deprived of beef and farmers lose potential income available where they to allow bull calves to grow to slaughter-weight. Producing beef alongside milk can help to solve Uganda's protein needs; this is the challenge Fred's work seeks to address. This challenge is particularly significant given Uganda's population grows at a massive 3.2% per year (the US's growth rate is 0.9%). A solution lies in modifying locally available feed resources for the inexpensive growth of bull calves. The "Milk Booster" Fred developed, using locally-produced molasses, works toward this goal. To date, Fred has been unable to produce and market this important booster on a large scale. The Global Knowledge Initiative is working with Fred as a LINK Challenger to raise awareness of his exciting work and help him identify potential collaborators who might have the resources and knowledge necessary to help Fred overcome this obstacle.
From Pakistan to Uganda, GKI's Training Program Goes Global
Training Center
Science and technology policy. Innovation ecosystem challenge mapping. Technology foresight. Strategy articulation. These words may not mean a lot for the average person. But they impact the way priorities are set, research is pursued, and business is conducted throughout the world. Once mastered, these tools offer powerful mechanisms for science, technology, and innovation-led (STI) development. For this reason, GKI launched its training program to support a multitude of diverse STI stakeholders. The program has two goals. First, it strives to boost people's appreciation for how STI policy and related tools impact the work they undertake on a daily basis. Second, it provides participants with concrete skills to help them utilize these tools effectively. The result: smarter policy and superior collaborations that deliver better research, education, and innovation outcomes.
Let's Get Technical: The GKI Review Committee
If you could solve any challenge in the world, which would you pick? At the Global Knowledge, we have criteria for selection that whittle down the pile of possible global development challenges from which GKI selects those for its partnership-making efforts. For us, challenges must be: Pertinent to science, technology and innovation; Transformative to the lives of people living on $2 a day; Solvable; Scalable; Sustainable; Suitable for capacity building, not just a quick fix. Even with specified criteria for selection, however, the choice among challenges humbles even the most intrepid solver.
GKI Advises USAID on its New Strategic Approach to Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) for Development
Just two weeks into his appointment as Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Raj Shah found himself at the helm of a now US$ 650 million dollar aid enterprise charged with responding to the earthquake in Haiti that had killed more than 200,000 and wounded countless others. The magnitude of that disaster and leading the US response to it defined Administrator Shah’s first months in office. With recovery efforts underway, innumerable agency priorities confronted him. Long overshadowed by other Agency priorities, science and technology (S&T) rose to the top of the Administrator’s agenda in those pivotal early months of his USAID tenure. For the first time in 19 years, he appointed an S&T Advisor who came to the Agency from Office of the S&T Advisor to the Secretary of State, where Nina Fedoroff had served as the double-hatted S&T Advisor to USAID. The appointee, Alex Deghan, came to the organization with a daunting terms of reference: restore USAID as a leading scientific and innovative technical agency and revitalize S&T as pillars for development.
Building Peace, Brokering Partnerships: The Global Knowledge Initiative Fosters Science Partnerships Between Pakistan, Afghanistan, and MENA Countries
At Kabul University, too few classrooms
means
exams outside
Shelled, bombed, and burned, Kabul Polytechnic—one of Afghanistan’s leading engineering and technical training universities—fell to looters after several mujahidin groups destroyed the campus in their quest to wrestle control of the capital during the 1990s. What had once served as a top university to quench young Afghanis’ thirst for skills in computer science, architecture, transport engineering, and construction was reduced to rubble.
Afghanistan’s universities are among the many casualties of the war there. Whereas some institutions like Kabul Polytechnic have received aid for reconstruction, several others remain hollow with too few facilities, staff or the necessary research and training tools and equipment to respond to the demand for tertiary education. In February of last year 68,000 students nationwide took an entrance exam to compete for just 6,000 slots throughout the Afghan tertiary education system.
The Global Knowledge Initiative Announces Partnership with the Victoria Institute of Science and Technology, Kenya
The VIST campus comes to life
Something exciting is happening on the shores of Lake Victoria. In Kisumu, Kenya a new research and training institution—the Victoria Institute of Science and Technology (VIST)—is coming to life. VIST’s mission is brazen: to train the future leaders of African technology-based enterprises using a totally new approach to teaching and learning. To do this, VIST is fostering an entrepreneurial culture on the campus that will specialize in training and research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The focus will be on equipping students to surmount the challenges related to sustainable development, while deploying a range of technologies to connect VIST to collaborators who can help.
In several respects VIST constitutes a cutting edge institution for training, research, and collaboration, not just in the East African context but on a global scale. First, VIST is developing multiple centers of excellence in multimedia technology, biotechnology, transportation, green technology, and policy and law. These centers will evolve into the equivalent of faculties as VIST matures.
