Prof Rwekaza Mukandala, UDSM Vice Chancellor
The ambitious goal is the brainchild of the University of Dar es
Salaam (UDSM) under its vision 2061 in which it will, among other
things, include the establishment of at least two colleges before the
end of this year.
“We want to produce more graduates than undergraduates and with
over 700 available lecturers holding PhDs, UDSM is at an advantageous
position in sub-Saharan Africa to produce more competent Masters and PhD
graduates,” Prof Rwekaza Mukandala, UDSM Vice Chancellor told The
Guardian in an exclusive interview earlier this week.
“We have embarked on re-establishing a College of Health Science
and a College of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Science as early
as October this year,” Prof Mukandala went on to announce.
He went on to reveal that the establishment of the Health College
to replace the Muhimbili Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) has already
been endorsed by the university council.
“A special council is expected to be held mid next month to approve
the establishment of the College of Agriculture, Livestock and
Fisheries,” he added citing that the college will focus on post harvest
value addition.
The vice chancellor went on to detail that at least 100 students
will be admitted to each newly established college during the next
academic year.
“We have started recruiting staff and already have Prof Laurence
Maseru, Former Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute Director General to act
as the Health College Dean,” he announced.
“The search for teaching hospitals is in good progress and so far,
Temeke Regional Hospital and Lugalo General Military Hospital have been
shortlisted for the purpose,” Prof Mukandala said.
“The health college will use MUHAS’ teaching curriculum to start
with, while the college of agriculture, livestock and fisheries will
organise a senate to approve its learning curriculum,” the don detailed.
According to Prof Mukandala, whose institution was ranked fourth in
Africa after three South African based universities during last year’s
Webometrics Ranking of World universities, said the ongoing reforms are
to ensure production of higher and more qualified as well as superior
specialised professionals.
He outlined other academic reforms that the university has embarked
on to include changing modalities for delivering PhDs from the current
British system to the American one where a PhD student is required to
take a 2 year course work and at least 2 other years for their thesis.
This is opposed to the British where a PhD student takes between 5 and 10 years to graduate, he explained.
Prof Mukandala said the university senate has also resolved to
change their mode of examinations, demanding every paper be commissioned
in three hours time as well as maintaining a variety of questions under
a subject matter.
The Vice Chancellor also confirmed that use of multiple choice
questions already came into effect during the just ended first semester.
“The new developments test the general knowledge of each student,
allowing them to make critical, logical application of the knowledge
gained,” he said.
According to him, the new changes follow recommendations from the
appointed external examiners who are expected to assess the application
of the new format later this year.
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