Updated: August
2008
Curriculum Development for PID
As part of the Prolinnova programme, partners have chosen curriculum development and the integration of Participatory Innovation Development approaches in higher education systems as one of its specific areas of attention. This commitment was first emphasised during the programme’s partners’ meeting in Cambodia in March 2006 where the Centre for International Cooperation of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (CIS-VUA), one of the partners in the Prolinnova international support team (IST), was asked to conceptualise this issue further and facilitate the development of a curriculum development subprogramme under PROLINNOVA.
The aim of the Curriculum Development (CD) component of Prolinnova is to address one of the most critical weaknesses in Higher Educational Institutes (HEI) curricula today: current teaching of agriculture and natural resource management fails to provide students with the necessary skills and sensitivities to contribute creatively to farmer’s and natural resource user’s own innovation systems. Many curricula in HEIs in developing countries are deemed outdated, inflexible and largely irrelevant to current socio-economic needs that addresses people’s own creativity and ability to find their own solutions. The CD programme under Prolinnova tries to address these issues by influencing higher education policies and practices and the facilitation of ways in which teachers and curriculum developers can meet and learn from each other.
A selection of the major achievements so far have been:
- Development of a prolinnova concept note on Curriculum Development (click here)
- Interesting discussions at the 2006, 2007 and 2008 International Partner’s Meetings (for minutes of the discussion at the 2008 IPM, click here);
- Sharing of ideas and best practices among prolinnova partners, mostly in Africa and Asia, through the PROLINNOVA listserve;
- Development of a full funding proposal to obtain funding for the CD programme under the European Union EDULINK programme. The proposal has been resubmitted in June 2008 and is currently awaiting approval. The proposed project is entitled 'PROMOTED' (Promoting Participation and Innovation in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Education) and aims to 'stimulate and improve innovation systems in agriculture and natural resource management', with the specific objective to 'develop curricula that promote participation and innovation in agriculture and NRM through sustainable learning networks'. Click here for the full proposal.
For the (near) future, the CD programme has the following priorities:
- Raise funding for a CD subprogramme;
- Organise a first workshop on CD in the first half of 2009 to share initial lessons learned from the Prolinnova partner countries.
For further information, please contact Will Critchley: wrs.critchley AT dienst.vu.nl
Posted: August 2008
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