To help improve higher education in Africa, Syracuse University received an $860,700 grant to fund its ongoing partnership with Kenyatta University.

The main goal of the partnership between SU and Kenyatta is to provide more resources to Kenyan teachers and develop the teachers at Kenyatta in areas like technology and teacher preparation, said Joanna Masingila, the head of the Kenya partnership and a professor in the School of Education at SU. The program has also provided a means for students from Kenya to study at SU.

Masingila was a Fulbright scholar at Kenyatta in 1998 and has had a close relationship with Kenya since then. In 2000, the School of Education at Kenyatta and the School of Education at SU decided to form a relationship and work together closely. Since the beginning of the relationship between Kenyatta and SU, 14 different Kenyan students have come to SU to get their degrees.

‘We’ve been working together since 2000,’ she said. ‘Now it’s just a formal partnership.’

The two schools tried to think of ways to receive funding, but up until 2009 they did all of their research and projects without any kind of financial aid and paid out of pocket, Masingila said.

This partnership, ‘Building Capacity through Quality Teacher Preparation,’ stemmed from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Higher Education for Development (HED) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (A-P-L-U). These groups have recently established 11 new partnerships between universities in the United States and Africa, one of which is between Syracuse and Kenyatta.

USAID is active in many different programs, but one of its main areas is providing support for development in countries worldwide. USAID has been working hand-in-hand with HED and A-P-L-U in the partnerships to provide services and funding for issues outside of higher education worldwide, Masingila said.

‘Our focus point is education, but there are many other partnerships that focus on agriculture, business, health — a variety of areas,’ Masingila said.

SU was one of 300 U.S. universities to apply for the partnership program. The application committee at USAID and HED narrowed it down to 33 universities, and each school was given a $50,000 grant to create a strategic plan, Masingila said.

SU has received $860,700 for the program for two years, with the possibility of more funding in the future. The money SU has received so far is for travel expenses to and from Kenya, tuition for Kenyan teachers who come to SU to get their doctorate, and overall support for the teachers at Kenyatta. It will also allow more Kenyan students to come to SU in the future.

Masingila said she ultimately hopes to receive funding for the partnership for 10 years. The selection committee will do an assessment at the end of the second year and see how much more funding is needed.

Montague Demment, the associate vice president for international development at A-P-L-U, has been working closely with both SU and Kenyatta on the Africa-U.S. higher education initiative. He said he hopes the partnership will bring resources from the U.S. government to improve overall higher education in Kenya.

The success of the partnership will depend on both the resources added by the money and how the Kenyan teachers respond to and apply the training, Demment said.

Demment said it is going to take a lot of time, energy and resources to make an impact on the advancement of higher education in Kenya, but he is confident the partnership will be a success.

Said Demment: ‘It is quite likely that with the creativity between Syracuse and Kenyatta, big changes can be made in the next 10 years.’

hawentz@syr.edu

Published on September 20, 2010 at 12:00 pm