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EAC heads to launch credit transfer scheme in November

Sunday September 13 2015

University students in East Africa will soon be able to retain their marks if they transfer to other institutions of higher learning in the five partner states.

This will be possible under the “credit transfer” scheme mooted by the Inter-University Council of East Africa (IUCEA).

According to Prof Mayunga Nkunya, executive secretary of IUCEA, the roadmap of an integrated EAC education system is awaiting formal launch by the EAC Heads of state during the next summit in November.

The five countries will have a standardised credit transfer system among educational institutions to allow students to complete parts of their degree in another country; uniform course lengths and curricula.

The large disparities in teaching quality will have to be addressed before education systems across the three countries can integrate effectively.

“It will be possible, under the new plan, for instance, to enrol for a bachelor’s degree at University of Nairobi and graduate at University of Dar es Salaam or Makerere,” said Prof Nkunya.

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“This means that a bachelor’s degree obtained from the University of Nairobi is readable in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi because they are similar and an accountant trained in Uganda can practise in Tanzania without being asked to sit for another examination set in that country.”

At the moment, Prof Nkunya said, the region lacks a quality assurance system, academic credit system, and qualification framework affecting harmonisation of curricula and education systems.

“This has been a key threat to education harmonisation in the EAC and has been fully addressed in the harmonised system to facilitate, among other things, mobility of students and acquisition of knowledge and skills in academic programmes of universities in the region,” he said.

READ: Harmonised varsity education to allow credits transfer

However, education experts say that it will be a challenge for the region to have a harmonised education curriculum and syllabus at a regional level.

According to Sarah Ruto, director of People’s Action for Learning Network, an education NGO, harmonisation at a headline level is possible but harmonisation of critical issues that include the curriculum, examination system and human resources will be a challenge.

“The challenge of academic inequity where private universities and public universities are competing differs in the five partner states,” said Ms Ruto, adding that the public universities in the region offer better quality education than the private universities and have harmonised standards.

“The other challenge is that of language. In Tanzania, all the primary and secondary schools teach in Kiswahili while in the other partner states — Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda — English is the language used while in Burundi it’s French. How will this work?” asked Ms Ruto.

She said that IUCEA needs to first evaluate if the current national school curricula and examination systems have been reviewed to match global standards before they are harmonised.

East African states have different education systems. The three cycle education system Kenya (8-4-4); Burundi (6-6-4); Rwanda is (9-3-4) — or the four cycle system (6–3 -3-4)— Tanzania and Uganda (7-4-2-3).

Tanzania, following the poor high school performance registered last year, has changed its curriculum to focus on numeracy and literacy.

Kenya is in the process of restructuring its school curriculum to focus on competence tests.

“This should be taken into consideration while harmonising education in the region,” noted Ms Ruto. “Execution of the education curriculum and syllabus should not be done at a regional level for it to work like in the European Union.”

Henry Mutoro, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academic Affairs at the University of Nairobi, said that partner states need to review their academic curriculum including the content before it is harmonised because it is outdated at some universities.

“The importance of regional partnerships in education lies enabling universities to pool resources and expertise. It is absolutely critical to invest more in high-quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics education,” he said.

Prof Mutoro said that the region needs to produce more graduates who can drive private sector competitiveness, find solutions to development problems, contribute to faster and more inclusive growth to allow East Africa to take its rightful place in the fully integrated global economy.

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