National Higher Diploma : Experts Fine-tune Reform Programme

 A workshop with professionals in the milieu, on the teaching programme and syllabuses on the course, took place last Friday in Yaounde.

Deans and proprietors of Private Higher Education Institutions, experts in the socio-professional milieu alongside those from the Ministry of Higher Education last Friday brainstormed on how teaching programmes and syllabuses of the Higher National Diploma (HND) could be improved upon. Opening the workshop on behalf of the Minister of Higher Education was the interim Secretary General, Professor Wilfred Gabsa who said the process to homologate educational programmes in the Higher National Diploma (HND), which started at the Ministry of Higher Education in 2015, is expected to be completed by August, this year.

Professor Gabsa said the workshop is out to delimit the sectors and specialities of an HND training firmly anchored to the real needs of the job market, contribute to the production of a referential of the generic and specific skills required by professionals for each HND sector and draw up HND curricula that meet the requirements of the Bachelor, Master and Doctorate (BMD) system as required by the new University Governance Policy. Prof Gabsa said when the reform will be completed, it will permit academic mobility, transferability of credit and ensure that an HND holder, which is an advanced level plus two years higher education training, to evolve into a bachelor degree and master degree programmes.

Specifically, the experts examined the teaching programmes in the field of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences; Engineering and Technology; Management, Business Studies and Legal careers and Tourism, Hotel Manage...