SCHOOL OF EDUCATION GRADUATES 60 STUDENTS FROM SHORT COURSES

The Dean of the School of Education, Dr. Ken Ndala, presided over the first ever UNIMA short course graduation ceremony on 18th March 2022 in the Great Hall. The Dean said this event is just a starting point of many more graduations of this kind as UNIMA will be offering many short course programmes.

“Now that UNIMA has been delinked and is expanding, the School of Education has additional departments,” he said. “We therefore have a lot of short courses that we want to start offering because we know there are a lot of people that will benefit from such courses. These courses have been introduced in order to address capacity gaps in the secondary education sector but we are including participants from other sectors”.

Ndala further attributed the success of the trainings to the Strengthening High Education Access Malawi Activity (SHEAMA) which is supporting the University in designing short course programmes, developing course modules, shortlisting of students and orientation of students. SHEAMA has also funded 43 students out of the 60 that graduated.

One of the graduates, Mr. Felix Kantande Nkhoma, expressed his excitement for taking part in the short course training, saying the training has added value and knowledge to his previous papers and work experience.

“I work as a project manager at Unity Center for Open, Online and Distant Learning. Before I enrolled for this course there were a lot of things my team and I used to do unknowingly when implementing projects. This programme has widened my knowledge and equipped me with new skills in project management. For example, I now know that for every successful project there is need to involve all stakeholders even minority groups,” he said.

60 students graduated with certificates in Principles and Practices of Education for Science Teachers, Project Planning and Management, Inclusive Education, Guidance and Counselling and Leadership and Management for Education Practitioners.