CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT AND
TRANSFORMATION IN HIGHER AGRICULTURAL
EDUCATION: SOME LESSONS FROM THE
SASAKAWA INITIATIVE IN SELECTED
UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES IN
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
By
Dr. Moses M. Zinnah
Programme Coordinator for West/Central Africa
(Winrock International/Sasakawa)
1.0 Introduction
Curriculum development or transformation is one of the
critical challenges of any successful institution of higher
education.
Innovative and demand-driven curriculum enables a college or
university to remain relevant and to be one step ahead of its
rivals, set trends and lead change in order to survive.
The pressure on higher agricultural education institutions to
develop demand-driven curricula or to reform and adapt existing
curricula to meet the rapidly changing needs of society is no
exception.
2.0 Sasakawa Africa Fund for Extension Education (SAFE) Launched in 1992 by Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA).
It assists selected African universities/colleges to develop relevant
formal in-service diploma and degree programmes for mid-career
agricultural extension staff.
Encourages and supports networking among participating SAFE
institutions.
SAFE’s guiding principle is experiential learning, with particular
emphasis on extended off-campus practical training programmes
in the students’ work environment. These off-campus training
programmes are called Supervised Enterprise Projects (SEPs).
SAFE programmes currently exit in nine selected universities and
colleges in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria,
Tanzania and Uganda.
Curriculum Development Approach of the SAFE
Initiative
The SAFE curriculum revitalization initiative
involves six essential steps that are intended as a
guide to help universities and colleges in Africa that
are in the process of developing or reforming their
agricultural extension curricula.
These flexible steps are only a guide (not a prescription)
that could be adapted by other universities and colleges in
developing demand-driven curricula.
Step1: Informal dialogue among key stakeholders
Step 2: Clarifying common vision and mission
Step 3: Formal agricultural training needs assessment
Step 4: Workshop for stakeholders
Step 5: Development of a responsive, demand-driven curriculum
Step 6: Establishing strong network among institutions and
agencies
4.0
Some Lessons From the SAFE Curricula Development
and Reform Initiative
1.
2.
Curriculum development or reform is a process not
an event. It is an on-going process. Therefore,
colleges and universities should always make plans
for continuous reviews and revisions of their
curricula to meet the changing needs of society.
Curriculum development/reform is rewarding. If
training programmes meet the needs of the society,
the visibility of the training institution is enhanced,
both locally and externally.
3.
Training programmes at the undergraduate and lower
levels should focus on generalist education rather than a
specialist orientation. Results from numerous studies in
different parts of the world, including a recent study in
2001 in Ghana, point to the need for generalist training at
the undergraduate and lower levels. This ensures a
strong broad-based knowledge in other disciplinary areas
and also enhances the employment opportunities for
graduates.
4.
It is important to meld together the various subject matter
disciplines in the faculty/school/college (especially the
social sciences which tend to be relegated to the second or
third place in priority) in multi-disciplinary manner. Most
of the problems that communities face are multi-faceted
and therefore, require multi-disciplinary approaches to
solving them.
5.
It is important to keep in mind that a good curriculum is
only as good as its implementation. Therefore, to ensure
that a good curriculum achieves its objectives, it is
important to pay particular attention to, among other
things, the following points:

Attract, recruit and retain qualified and
experienced core staff to nurture and implement
the curriculum. This includes competitive salaries,
flexibility to manage time and produce
independent research, opportunity to attend
professional conferences/workshops, and more
importantly transparency in the promotion
procedures. There should also be opportunities for
lecturers to pursue advanced training, especially at
the Ph.D. level.
•
Emphasize student-centred, teaching-learning. Move the
responsibility for learning from the lecturers to the
students; the lecturers become facilitators, assisting the
students to reach their individual goals. This sounds
easy in theory, but it is difficult in practice because it
demands a radical change from what currently
prevails in most universities and colleges in Africa.
•
Provide regular in-house seminars for teaching staff on
innovative teaching-learning methods that promote
effective student-centred learning.

Place emphasis on practical, experiential learning.
This will enable students to translate the vast
knowledge gained into a basis for decision-making
and understand both its relevance and inadequacies
for addressing issues faced in rural farming
communities or for developing entrepreneurial
projects as a teaching tool in starting and running
their own enterprises after gradation.

Provide basic instructional facilities (i.e., library,
reference books, journals, computer and computer
software) to foster effective teaching-learning
processes.

Use multiple innovative student assessment techniques
to capture the diverse learning styles of learners. The
assessment should include a balanced combination of
conventional end-of-class examinations (with more
emphasis on analysis and application, than on recall),
and other innovative methods such as case studies,
reports of individual and/or small group projects, term
papers, oral presentations, debates, peer reviews, and
employer assessments after attachments.
6.
Forge formal network with employers, public and
private sectors, NGOs, farmers and others, both within
and outside the country, that have a stake in the
agricultural education.
7.
Devise ways and means to minimize “territoriality”
among the various departments within the faculty or
college because it limits the ability to design innovative
curriculum to address specific evolving needs.
Territoriality also results in unnecessary competition for
credit hours in the total credit hours required for
students to graduate.
8.
Acknowledge that by the time a student completes a
typical 4-year agriculture degree programme in a
university, most of what he/she has learnt is obsolete.
Therefore, it is important to emphasize critical/systems
thinking skills and place more emphasis on life-long and
experiential learning approaches to enable to “learn how
to learn”.
Students should also be encouraged to take more
responsibility for their learning, and to develop skills in
working in teams or groups composed of diverse
individuals to enhance horizontal and mutual sharing of
experiences.
9. Document impact of the curriculum (on graduates,
employers, the training institution itself, etc.) and share
the information of the impact with stakeholders. It
helps them to know the relevance of the training and to
support the programme.
10. Last, but not the least:
There must be committed leaders who are capable of
formulating clear vision and mission for training and
cultivating a flexible interdisciplinary approach to
education in addressing the complex and changing
needs of the agricultural sector.
Curriculum cannot be implemented by a Vice
Chancellor or Dean acting alone. There must be a
team working together toward a common goal; and
this should be coupled with the necessary resources to
implementation and sustain the demand-driven
nature of the curriculum.
To conclude:
I urge the leadership and teaching staff of the University of The
Gambia to consider the lessons of the SAFE programme in the
on-going discussions on developing a new demand-driven
undergraduate degree curriculum in agriculture.
One of the greatest benefits of this Participatory Curriculum
Development Workshop is the opportunity to get diverse views
from stakeholders engaged in the agricultural sector in The
Gambia. The University of The Gambia should take advantage
of their contributions in developing the new agriculture
curriculum to ensure its responsiveness and relevance.
THANK YOU
FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!