Activity Report-Kenya

STRENGTHENING REGIONAL CAPACITY IN RESEARCH AND TRAINING IN

FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE FOR IMPROVED FOOD SECURITY AND
LIVELIHOODS IN EASTERN AFRICA

CURRICULUM REVIEW WORKSHOP

CURRICULUM REVIEW MEETING HELD AT ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST PASTORAL

CENTER- ELDORET ON 31ST MARCH, 2016 TO 1ST APRIL, 2016.

List of Participants

1. Prof. Phillip Raburu – Head, Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences

2. Mr. Simon Agembe – Lecturer,
3. Dr. Frank Masese - Lecturer
4. Mr. Robert Olendi – Assistant Lecturer
5. Mrs. Leah Kerengo - Lecturer
6. Mr. Alfred Achieng - Lecturer
7. Ms. Petronilla Mwagudza - Graduate Assistant
8. Mr. Edwin Yongo - Graduate Assistant
9. Mr. James Barasa - Taking minutes
10. Mr. William Kinyua – Chief Technician
11. Mr. Henry Lunaligo Lubanga – Senior Technician
12. Dr. David Lusega - Lecturer
13. Dr. Geraldine Matolla - Lecturer
14. Prof. Julius Manyala - Associate Professor
15: Prof. Boaz Kaunda-Arara - Professor
16 . Mr. Josiah Ani – Lecturer (Rappoteur)

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1. Introductory Remarks: Prof. Philip Raburu

The Chair welcomed all members to curriculum review meeting, noting that the exercise was
overdue, because of the requirements by the Kenya Commission for University Education
(CUE). He thanked the STRECAFISH Project for funding the curriculum review
workshop especially the postgraduate component. The old curriculum Fisheries and Aquatic
Sciences (FAS) seems popular in the market, and so although it was to be discarded after the new
curricula are in place, it has been found necessary to retain it to make the 5th Programme in the
B.Sc. curriculum. According to the CUE requirements, there should be input from relevant
stakeholders into the curriculum which should then be re-aligned to current situation (skills
needed in the market for the growth of Fisheries industry). Therefore this review exercise was
necessary to precede stakeholder participation/inputs. Therefore any general courses in the FAS
curriculum have to be aligned to the 4 new curricula B.Sc curricula and to the M.Sc. curriculum,
in order to maximize utilization of manpower especially for introductory courses. The workshop
is called to review the B.Sc. and the M.Sc. curricula and the Strecafish Project has kindly agreed
to sponsor the M.Sc. curriculum in line with project activities.

2. Opening Remarks by DVC (ASA): Prof. Ruth Otunga,

The curriculum Review workshop was officially opened by the Deputy Vice Chancellor;

I) Department (FAS) was heading in the right direction in this curriculum review exercise,
because a curriculum should be reviewed after a cycle, i.e. 4 years (when students have gone
through from first to fourth year of study in the B.Sc. programme). The postgraduate programm
should also be reviewed after 4 cycles of graduation.

II) Some recommendations cannot be implemented as recommended, because often,

improvisation is used, even in the teaching, therefore it is necessary to have inputs of students
and other stakeholders.

III). A needs assessment is necessary: Job market, what is on offer in other Universities in the ,
Region and even globally, views of specialists from the field and potential employers to be
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incorporated, benchmarking on regional scale is important, and could easily be accomplished
using Internet.

IV) The DVC gave a breakdown of the technicalities of the review process:

a) What is the philosophy of the programme: a requirement of CUE, Purpose of curriculum,

what to achieved? Content of curriculum? How is the content to be achieved, or implemented to
make it cohesive? Which courses are Prerequistes? i. e. at each yr of study.

b) What are the resources available, in totality? Equipment, Labs, Human Resources,
Consultants, Experimental materials? When are students to go to the field, and where or which
bodies the students will be attached, to see what happens in practice?

c) Evaluation: what are the forms of testing, benefit or grading of students, term papers? CATs
and End of semester exams to be given? Etc.

d) Course names and codes to be given, and should be in line with the names used in the
University.

e) So the development of curriculum cannot be in isolation: Timing of the exercise is important:

Content of each course must be enough or sufficient, to last for semester of 16 weeks.

f) Core courses to be identified, University-wide courses to be identified, Core courses in the

school also to be identified, and then Core courses in FAS to be made clear, for students to be
considered specialists. All Electives also be identified, so that after a student has taken all the
necessary courses in the programme, should be able to graduate with enough units, to make them
competitive in the job market.

g) Curriculum is built on what has already been in place, it is then tuned to make it more
relevant, or market oriented.

The Vice-Chancellor thanked the Strecafish Project for co-sponsoring the curriculum
review workshop for the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences in the University of
Eldoret.

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Questions to the DVC:

1. Was it crucial to have the participation of Stakeholders and Employers in the curriculum?

2. There was need to patent the curricula by the University, to avoid poaching by other
Universities.

3. There was a problem of overlap in many of the programmes in the University, or other
Universities

4. What were some of the methods of teaching that could help to reduce the distance between
Lecturers and students?

Response by the DVC (ASA)

It was crucial to have stakeholder participation because it enriches the curriculum, and it is also a
requirement by CUE, which approves curricula for Universities in the country.

The curricula could be patented, but it was also important to remember that we somehow have to
borrow or learn from each other, so curricula in different Universities may be similar in some
ways, but should not be entirely similar, because then CUE will not approve a latter curriculum
that is very similar to another in a different college that has already been approved by the
commission. In the University, there was an effort to identify similarities in the curricula across
programmes or schools, so that similar courses could be offered as one across the schools, to be
covered by a single Lecturer. This would optimize the utilization of human resources, and help to
move away from the trend where courses are introduced primarily as a way of creating
employment opportunities. It was even difficult to find qualified Lecturers to recuit for the
courses, since there were now many Universities in the country looking/competing for the same
manpower.

Different programmes and courses have different methods of delivery of content, and so it was
upon lecturers to employ teaching methods most relevant to the courses they are teaching to

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ensure effective teaching, in which the distance between the learner and lecturer is just naturally
reduced.

Overall, the DVC commended the DFAS on being in the fore front in many activities in the
University, and urged her to maintain the spirit, noting that as a pioneer school of the University,
the school of NRM needed to be in the lead at all times.

3: Actual Curriculum Review Exercise

The curriculum review process followed the DACUM process of developing a curriculum

1. The exercise began by the Chair of the session (Prof. Raburu) asking members to write down
the job titles they expected graduates of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (FAS) to land after
completing the 4-year course at the University of Eldoret and the 2 –year M.Sc. Program. The
job titles, listed below, were written on strips of manila paper and pinned on board, for
deliberation.

The job titles identified by participants for the M.Sc. graduates are listed below:

1. Fisheries Resource Manager

2.Water Quality Expert

3.Researcher

4.Environmental Officer/Health Expert

5.Fisheries Enterpreneur/Ornamentalist

6.Consultant

7.Microbiologist

8.Lecturer

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9.Fisheries Officer

10.Hatchery Manager

11.Fish Pathologist

12.Fish Quality Inspector

13.Project Manager

14.Fisheries Extension Officer

15.Fish Breeder

16.Food Technologist

17.Teacher

18.Biostatistician

19.Technician

20.Fisheries Socio-economist

21.Aquatic Resource Mapping Expert

22.Pond Designer

23.Fish Feed Manufacturer

24.Limnologist

25.Fish Farmer

26.Warden

27.Fisheries Ecologist

28.Biogeochemist

29.Ecohydrologist
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30.Oceanographer

31.Taxonomist

32.Fishing Gear Technologist

4: Suggested Courses

Following the above exercise, courses were suggested that meet the competencies and skills of
the identified Jobs.

It was agreed that in the MSc. curriculum, the following courses will be core, to be taken by all
students admitted into the programme:

Proposed Core Courses

1. Research Methods

2. Enterprising Science

3. Advanced Biostatistics

4. Climate change and Aquatic Resources

5. Biotechnology and advances in Aquatic Resources

Members then separated into 4 groups corresponding to programme options in order to generate
the courses. These were:

Suggested Programme Options:

i). Limnology and Wetlands management,

ii). Aquaculture,
iii). Fisheries Management, and

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iv). Fish Health and quality Assurance options

The courses proposed by the groups are listed below:

1. M.SC. FISHERIES MANAGEMENT Option

Minimum requirements=44 units (26 coursework and 18-Research), uniform for all the options.

General Programme core courses:

1. Research Methods (3 units)

2. Enterprising Science (3 units)

3. Advanced Biostatistics (3 units)

4. Climate change and Aquatic Resources (3 units)

5. Biotechnology and advances in Aquatic Resources (3 units)

Option Core courses

1. Fisheries Socio-economics (3)

2. Advanced Fish Population Dynamics(3)
3. Advanced Aquatic Ecology(3)
4. Advanced Fish Ecology (3)
5. Thesis Research (18)
6. Contemporary Issues in Fisheries (2)

Required

1. Advanced Capture Fisheries Resource Management (3)

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Electives

1. Fish Stock Assessment(3)

2. Climate Change and Fisheries Resources(3)
3. Post-harvest Technology(3)
4. Environmental and Social Impact Assessment(3)

2. M.Sc AQUACULTURE Option-Proposed courses

3. General Programme core courses:

1. Research Methods (3 units)

2.Enterprising Science (3 units)

3.Advanced Biostatistics (3 units)

4.Climate change and Aquatic Resources (3 units)

5.Biotechnology and advances in Aquatic Resources (3 units)

Additional core courses

1. Fin fish culture
2. Aquaculture Planning and Management
3. Advanced Fish Nutrition and Feed Technology
4. Graduate Seminar I (Contemporary issues in Aquaculture).

5. Graduate II (Topic that builds up on thesis research area).

6. Thesis Research

REQUIRED COURSES

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 1. Advanced seed production and Hatchery management

2. Fish Breeding and Genetics.

3. Fish Health Management

4. Product development and value addition

ELECTIVES

1. Water quality management

2. Aquaculture Entrepreneurship

3. Shellfish/Sea-weed cultur

4. Biotechnology in Aquaculture

4. LIMNOLOGY AND WETLAND MANAGEMENT OPTION

Option Core Courses

1. Stream and River Ecology (3)

2. Lake Ecology (3)
3. Wetland Ecology (3)
4. Climate Change and Aquatic Resources (3)
5. Thesis (18)

Required Courses

1. Wetland Biodiversity Conservation and Management (3)

2. Wetlands for Water Quality Management (3)
3. Aquatic Assessment and Biomonitoring (3)
4. Wetlands and Livelihoods (2)

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 5. GIS and Remote Sensing for Aquatic Resource Management (3)
6. Contemporary Issues in Limnology and wetlands (2)
7. Socio-Economics (3)

Electives

1. Advanced Aquatic Ecology (3)

2. Biogeochemistry and nutrient Cycling (3)
3. Modeling of Aquatic Ecosystems (3)
4. Constructed Wetland Design and operations (3)
5. Aquaculture (3)
6. Fish Ecology (3)

4. FISH HEALTH MANAGEMENT & QUALITY ASSURANCE OPTION

Option Core courses

2. Enterprising science

3. Biotechnology

Required courses

1. Stress, fish health and the Environment

2. Diseases of fish

(Infectious: bacterial fungal and parasitic)

(Non-infectious: Nutritional, genetic neoplastic &environmental)

Notiafiable diseases

3. Fish disease diagnostic procedures and biotechnological advances

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4. Fish disease control procedures (Quarantine; legal regulatory requirements; monitorin,
treatment & vaccination)

5. Microbial processes in fish post mortem (enzymatic, auto-oxidation etc)

6. Fish disease impacts (loss of production and market, public health concerns
(Ichthyozoonotics)

7. Hazard and risk analysis : management and control

8. Safety and standards for fish quality assurance

9. Graduate seminar

10. Contemporary issues in fish health management and QA (climate change and fish
diseases, emerging risks associated with QA and fish diseases)

The way forward:

1. Proposed that the STRECAFISH Project could further support a fine tuning workshop for
the M.Sc Curriculum that will have more stakeholders. The Strecafish Project agreed to look at
possibility of funding a follow-up review workshop during the second year of the Project due to
commence from August 2016.

2. The Head of Department undertook to find out the required number of units for each option as
per the Commission for University Education Specifications.

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WORKSHOP GALLERY

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