PROJECTS

1. International project meetings

One of the Project Leader, Dr. Nduwingoma Mathias participated in the planning meeting of activities for the project held at University of Agder from 22-28 April 2019. This meeting gathered partners from the 3 universities and was a kick off meeting that allowed to start implementation of activities like a training organized in Rwanda in May 2019.

EQIP project was supposed to cover the round trip air ticket and provide with Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) for the accommodation and living expenses in Norway.
The expected results were :
Increased graduate programmes and courses in education and ICT jointly reviewed to permit mobility, blended learning and transformative pedagogy
Increased work placements/employability for students from participating universities
Increased south-south and south-north academic and research collaboration
Increased engagement between higher education institutions and employers or social enterprises
Increased internationalization of study programmes in participating partner universities in the South and the North.

The key output of the mission was :
The implementation plan reviewed
Budget reviewed and adjusted
Common understanding of the EQIP project by all partners

2. Staff Mobility and Faculty Competence Enhancement

Under the project “Enhancing Quality and Internationalization of Study Programme through Mobile Transformative Pedagogy (EQIP)” that works between University of Agder (Norway), University of Makerere (Uganda) and University of Rwanda, a workshop that allowed to share best practices among the three universities has been organized at Rukara Campus from 05/8/2019 to 09/8/2019. It was designed as a hands-on collaborative activity, with emphasis on peer-learning and reification through the creation of new course modules for blended learning at University of Rwanda. UR was represented by 10 participants in the workshop selected from the 6 colleges. Makerere University has been represented by 5 academic staff while University of Agder was represented by 3 participants.

After completion of the workshop, the participants have been able to :
● Describe background theories of blended learning course creation
● Analyze blended learning course design principles
● Create a study guide for blended learning
● Design and develop blended learning courses including student learning activities, motivating course elements and innovative ways to present learning materials
● Apply transformative pedagogy in teaching online
● Support learners in virtual learning environments
● Assess the learning in blended learning

Please open this link for more information about the workshop : https://ur.ac.rw/?Varsities-to-enhance-the-move-from-traditional-to-modern-teaching-methodologies

3. Master Student mobility from the global south to Norway and between Rwanda and Uganda : Improvement of systems of approval and recognition of education from partner

a. Global South to Norway
Three Rwandans( one female and three males) submitted their applications.The University of Agdar considered only two applications for the female applicant and Ms. and a male applicant. Unfortunately, the female applicant withdrew at the last minutes because we delayed to get the 1st installment of the budget. She got another scholarship. The other applicant went alone and spent 5 months from : 07/8/2019 to 20/12/2019 as an exchange students for autumn semester in multimedia and educational technology at University of Agder, Grimstad Campus.
He is now a year 1 student in Masters of Curriculum and Instructions at College of Education

b. Between Rwanda and Uganda

Between Rwanda and Uganda, we got one famale student from Uganda. She has been admitted in School of ICT at College of Science and Technology.
The University of Rwanda, College of Science and Technology, School of ICT invited her to come to study 3 modules in its’ Master’s Program of Software Engineering from 23rd February to 23rd May 2020. As it was stated in the letter, all the expenses related to her travel, accommodation subsistence and insurance were covered by Makerere University and the University of Rwanda was to provide her the supervision and other needed facilities to support her in her studies.

At the same time she reached at UR to start her program, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic came up in mid-March which affected her planned program because the Government took a measure to prevent its transmission, including a total lockdown and the suspension of teaching activities from 16th March 2020 to September 2020 and all students advised to go back home and they were encouraged to continue their online self-learning taking advantage of uploaded teaching materials on University e-Learning platform.

They resumed online with the beginning of June 2020. She completed the 3 modules and now she could not go back between borders are still closed.
EQIP Rwanda has been obliged to support her to stay safe by granting her the scholarship fees to cover the 4 more months up to September 2020.

c. Norway to global South

A Norwegian student took part in the exchange program in the period from 5th August to 9th September at the University of Rwanda, College of Education, Rukara Campus. Due to the time limitation with the stay at the university the main purpose was to learn more about the learning culture in Rwanda and understand the differences between the Norwegian and the Rwandan learning culture. By getting to know both the students and the teacher it was easier to get a plan over the module and possible to customize the module to better fit the students as indicated in his report.

3. Curriculum Review and Development

The activity was the development of educational methods and materials (including digitalization).This work package had to increase quality and internationalize study programmes in Norway, Uganda and Rwanda through joint curriculum review and development of Master level courses.

Five (5) graduate study programmes and courses in the disciplines of educational sciences and ICT were supposed to be jointly reviewed to permit student and staff mobility, blended learning, and transformative pedagogy.

Fourteen (14) transferrable courses across the participating institutions adopted/ adapted or developed from/for the candidate programmes namely : MIDT (Master of Instructional Design and Technology) and MIS (Master of Information Systems) at Makerere University, MECI (Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction) and MSE (Master of Software Engineering) at University of Rwanda, and MMET (Master of Multimedia and Educational Technology) at University of Agder.

From 21st to 26thJune 2020, under EQIP, the School of ICT, College of Science and Technology managed to review fourteen (14) modules of Masters of software Engineering.