Final Management and Leadership training for Rwandan partner institutions provided online
For the SEAD project the Covid-19 lockdown measures kept the project from organizing interventions related to curriculum development & review, research & innovation workshops, exposure visits, extension services delivery and replication and so on. Unfortunately, a long list of activities had to be postponed.
Currently, the projects’ consortium partners are preparing for the continuation of the activities as soon as bringing participants together at venues is being permitted. As international travel is not expected to resume within the foreseeable future, the SEAD consortium partners will provide their technical assistance from a distance, while the SEAD team on the ground in Rwanda will take on an active role in the facilitation.
Management and Leadership training via distance learning
Even though many project activities have currently come to a standstill, the fourth and final cyclical management and leadership training continued via distance learning online. From 15 until 18 June 2020, 21 participants of SEAD’s partner institutions joined Management training expert Rui Santos. The 4-day online workshop was a satisfactory completion of this fourth workshop and the earlier three workshops.
“SEAD strengthens the management and leadership capacities of partner institutions by creating a strong enabling environment for quality, demand-driven education through training on Cyclical Leadership & Management, Management of Curriculum Review & Development, as well as a training in Career Information, Advice and Guidance” - Fred Shema; Director of Academic Services at IPRC Gishari
Read the full interview with Fred Shema here.
Curriculum development workshops
On the 30th of June the kickoff of the curriculum development workshops took place. The aim of the first workshop was on getting a clear picture on what needs to be done, by whom, by when and under which conditions. The workshop will be followed by a series of follow up workshops, both in Rwanda and through online meetings.
For the SEAD West project, curriculum development is one of the three lines of intervention. The Rwanda Polytechnic, as custodian of the provision of TVET in Rwanda, envisions all its Integrated Polytechnic Regional Colleges to provide a comprehensive portfolio of programs that caters for the skill needs of the economic sectors of the country, from artisan to technical and professional level. At IPRC Karongi, currently not providing any agricultural related program, the establishment of a department of Agricultural Engineering is foreseen, where a curriculum of horticulture is to be offered as from the start of the academic year 2020/21 that is foreseen in November 2020. SEAD West has committed to support the IPRC in readying this curriculum that is making use to the facilities provided through the Service Training & Innovation Centre that is established under the project as a partnership between IPRC Karongi and Holland Greentech Rwanda.
Upcoming SME Coaching workshop
From 13 until 17 July the SME coaching workshop will take place in Rwanda.
Initially cooperatives were simply groups of farmers cooperating voluntarily, without a clear structure. However, especially since the publication of the new law on cooperatives in Rwanda, agricultural cooperatives are becoming major actors in the economic growth of the country and are on a path of becoming full-fledged players in the private sector. At the same time, SMEs and start-ups are increasing their economic activity albeit that SMEs in fragile and conflict-affected regions experience specific and unique hurdles to doing business.
In this context, SEAD West is eager to support SMEs in western province (farmers, cooperatives and agribusinesses/services) by providing a business counselling training program that is tailored to individuals with little or no direct working experience with SME’s. The overall program aims to develop the business counselling competencies of SEAD West partner institutions. To this effect, participants to the training program are attending two (virtual & actual) sessions, respectively between July and November 2020. In addition, participants will undertake a counselling assignment in between the two training sessions, providing business counselling to SME in the region. The training methodology will be based on the same way in which entrepreneurs develop their competencies, i.e. through ‘experiential learning’, learning by doing, by trial and error, by repetition.
About SEAD and SEAD West
The SEAD Project and the SEAD West Project aim to contribute to achieving sustainable food security in Rwanda. The projects are designed to support Rwandan universities and TVET institutions to improve their education and training programmes; research and community services in agricultural production; value chain management as well as land and water management. SEAD and SEAD West are institutional development cooperation programmes aimed at strengthening educational capacities in partner countries of Dutch Development Cooperation through strengthening post-secondary education and training.
Visit the SEAD website for more information
SEAD is part of the Nuffic NICHE programme and SEAD West is part of the Nuffic Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP)
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