Scotland University to develop joint delivery programmes with Malawi Polytechnic
Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) in Scotland has plans to develop joint delivery of postgraduate programmes with University of Malawi’s Polytechnic.
This was disclosed when Malawi-Scotland Partnership (Masp) donated 425 textbooks for Polytechnic Library in Quantity Surveying, Real Estate, Project Management, Infrastructure Asset Management, Engineering, Computing and Statistics disciplines among others valued at about MK13 million.
Masp board chairperson Dr Mathews Mtumbuka said GCU was working closely with Poly to develop linkages that could ultimately result in joint delivery of postgraduate programmes.
Mtumbuka said Malawi Ngwira, a Malawian teaching at GCU conceptualised the idea to donate books to the country’s colleges after collecting the books from his shelves and friends and was later joined by Professor Ian Cameron who is dean of the School of Engineering and Built Environment.
He said through the initiative CGU had sponsored some of Poly members of staff in the areas of Project Management, Quantity Surveying, Real Estate, Construction Management to go to GCU and undertake postgraduate studies a period of five years.
“The Agreement will run for five years and presently the first recruit is about to complete her MSc in Quantity Surveying and due to return to Poly shortly,” Mtumbuka, who is also a graduate of Engineering at Polytechnic, said.
He said the partnership would be possible bearing in mind that the two school of higher learning offer many similar programmes in some disciplines.
“There is a big commonality between the Poly and GCU in terms of the programmes of study on offer for example in Construction related courses that align with those of the GCU School of Engineering and Built Environment—Quantity Surveying, Real Estate, Project Management, Infrastructure Asset Management, Engineering, Computing, Statistics,” he said.
He was grateful to the Glasgow Caledonian University for the donation which would go a long way to alleviate the acute shortage of books for the beneficiary disciplines at the Polytechnic.
Mtumbuka said during his time of studies shortage of books at Polytechnic were serious such that students and sometimes lecturers were scrambling to access them.
“We had to rely on photocopying chapters from the one or two copies of each book we needed. For instance, in electronics, we only had one copy of the prescribed book. In some instances, the one copy would be shared between the lecturer and the students. Life as a student was really difficult in such circumstances,” he said.
Vice-Principal of The Polytechnic Dr Nancy Chitera applauded CGU for the donation saying it has come at the right time while the college is promoting student-based teaching system.
“We are encouraging students to read and search and for information and this is only possible when there are books. They now have reference books and lecturers, too, will benefit a lot from the books,” Chitera said.
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