UM supports University of Burundi with development of bachelor's degree programs in IT
Maastricht University (UM) will support the Université de Burundi with the development of educational programs in IT. On Dec. 17, 2024, UM and the Ministry of Education of Burundi signed a contract for this project. The four-year project (total budget €3.5 million) is funded by the World Bank. The first phase started in December 2024. The Department of Advanced Computing Sciences (DACS) of the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE) is leading this project, with significant input from the Maastricht School of Management (MSM).
The project is part of policies of the Burundi government to improve the employability of young people, especially in the area of digital skills. To this end, the government of Burundi established the Institut de Technologies Numeriques (ITN) within the University of Burundi. To support them, the Government of Burundi, supported by the World Bank, sought a foreign university with extensive experience in this field.
UM was selected because the University of Burundi was inspired by the Project Centered Learning approach developed by DACS (PCL, an adaptation of the Problem Based Learning approach). A new undergraduate program in Computer Science will be modeled after FSE's Bachelor of Computer Science. ITN is seeking to extend the PCL approach to other IT-related programs. Furthermore, DACS will advise ITN regarding investment, recruitment, teaching, research and cooperation with local industry. Five PhD candidates will become lecturers at ITN after earning their doctorates at UM.
MSM is supporting ITN in developing an incubator program for promising IT startups and leadership capacity.
Also read
-
How do plants make their secret weapons? Clever new tool helps scientists to find out.
Dutch scientists created MEANtools, a smart tool that reveals how plants make specialised compounds, reducing lab work.
-
AI's moral architects: neither demi-gods nor code monkeys
Who’s to blame if AI goes wrong? And who’s responsible for it not having a negative impact in the first place? In her PhD thesis, "A Showing of Hands: Making Visible the Ethical Agency of AI Developers", Tricia Griffin looks at the people behind the technology and the clichés. She argues that we...
-
Engaging parents in AI: Maastricht University strengthens science literacy in Limburg
How can parents gain a better understanding of what artificial intelligence (AI) means for their child’s education? At Maastricht University, Martijn Boussé and colleagues are launching an innovative project that actively involves parents of secondary school pupils in Limburg in the development of...
