Virtual doctoral school for the field of interpreting/multilingual communication in Africa

This project aims to develop a proof-of-concept for a Virtual doctoral school in the field of interpreting/multilingual communication between the Universities of Ghana (Accra), Nairobi and Geneva. Building on two pedagogical innovation projects in the field of virtual learning by the University of Geneva, this project aims to provide the basic design for virtual doctoral education in Africa by building on the pedagogical principles of peer-to-peer collaboration in a challenging connectivity environment. With the rapid expansion of MOOCs across Africa and the need to support learners in this more challenging context, peer-to-peer collaboration and support, especially at the post-graduate level, emerges as a vital component to successful higher education and research capacity building in Africa.

This project involves the organization of a seminar hosted by the University of Ghana, Accra, where the three project partners and academic staff involved in the project work together to achieve the project’s objectives.

Included is the official letter from the University of Ghana, Dr. Robert Yennah, to host the seminar, the CV of Prof. Dr. Jayne Mutiga, University of Nairobi, who travelled to Accra to attend the seminar, and the CVs of the project coordinator, Prof. Dr. Barbara Moser-Mercer, and of a doctoral assistant, Ms Carmen Delgado Luchner, who travelled to Ghana to co-organize the seminar and implement the pilot project together with our partner universities.

The University of Geneva has an institutional MoU with the University of Nairobi. The University of Nairobi and the University of Ghana are both official partners in the African Virtual Network project, a pedagogical innovation project whose objective it is to provide proof-of-concept for virtual peer-to-peer collaboration at the MA level, and which is entirely funded by the University of Geneva. The AVN project currently involves 5 university staff at the University of Ghana and Nairobi, and a total of 16 MA students across the 3 universities (Ghana, Nairobi, Geneva).

Objectives:-

• Map research areas in demand in Africa in the field of multilingual communication;
• Explore the transfer of proven peer-to-peer learning and tutoring principles to doctoral education;
• Develop a pilot program for virtual doctoral education for members of the PAMCIT Consortium.

-Barbara Moser-Mercer, University of Geneva
-Dr. Robert Yennah, University of Accra
-Prof. Dr. Jayne Mutiga, University of Nairobi