Curriculum Validation Workshop on Food Security and Disaster Risk Management Development Programs
Addis Ababa University (AAU) College of Development Studies Centre for Food Security Studies conducted Disaster Risk Management curriculum development and Food Security curriculum review workshop at Ambassador Hotel on the 28th of December 2021.
Shumete Gizaw (PhD), Director General for the Information Network Security Agency of the FDRE, in his opening speech sated that the workshop aimed at getting feedbacks and advices from professionals, scientists and stakeholders in the field to form a convergence from various perspectives.
“As we are working in a highly competitive world for quality education and problem solving researches, postgraduate programs are part of the transformative move to be taking the various comments and drawbacks that we are facing today into consideration. If education goes wrong, nothing will go right,” Dr. Shumete said.
According to Dr. Shyumete, the food security and disaster risk management programs are timely and highly relevant to pave the way to identify and map local capabilities and contextualize realities to cope up with various hazards that Ethiopia is facing today.
Meskerm Abi (PhD), Head for Centre of Food Security Studies, in her introduction stated that the Centre has shown great progress since its establishment in 2009 and graduated more than 400 students in Masters and 2 students in PhD, and now also striving to expand its enrolment capacity as well as programs.
The Centre aspires to be among the top ten centres of excellence in food security, disaster risk management and development studies in Africa by 2030, Dr. Meskerm remarked. This validation workshop on Food Security and Disaster Risk Management both for Masters’ and PhD Programs is an indicator for the effort, she added.
Internal and external curriculum reviewers both form AAU and other national universities like Arba Minch, Arsi, Haromaya and others presented their amending views after extensively reviewed the curriculum document.
Open discussion was thoroughly held among the participants following the reviewers’ comments, suggestions and recommendations that they forwarded based on their national, continental and global experiences in the fields as well as their analysis of the curriculum draft document.
As stressed in the workshop, even though draught was basically concerned as potential hazard of the country, nowadays a number of others, such as flood, war, locust invasion, pandemic diseases like COVID-19 and the like are occurring together putting the country in danger at a time.
The workshop generalizing Ethiopia as vulnerable to different natural and human created disasters, promoting speciality areas of education focused on food security and disaster risk management and creating skilled manpower in these areas would be paramount significant to easily protect the overall damages that may happen in any course of time.
Source: Addis Ababa University