Developing Graduate Education Structures and Degrees

• In Event: Thirteen years of higher education development in Afghanistan – the challenge of sustainability

Proposal

This presentation will discuss best practices and lessons learned in Graduate Education in Afghanistan, focusing on two noteworthy graduate programs spanning a decade of capacity building work by the University of Massachusetts and USAID.

An important component of the institutional capacity of higher education in Afghanistan is the development and implementation of its academic staff (USAID Impact Study, 2011). In conversations with the Afghan government, it was determined the most efficient, effective and sustainable way to increase the capacity at teacher training institutes was providing them with access to advanced education studies by developing a Master of Education degree program that could be delivered in Afghanistan (USAID Impact Study, 2011). A Master’s Degree (M.Ed.) program was established in 2007 by the University of Massachusetts as a key component of the first USAID funded Higher Education Project (HEP).

Since 2007, UMass continued to support the M.Ed. program under the second HEP program until it was officially handed over in December 2011. The M.Ed. program has been significant in enrolling ten cohorts of students, including a large proportion of women who are often precluded from study abroad by their families and traditional culture. Additionally, because the program was taught in Dari, faculty members who could not study overseas because of the lack of proficiency in English have been able to earn Master’s degrees. This program is a noteworthy example of a new degree program with a strategy for sustainability at the macro, meso and micro levels, producing more than 170 graduates (FHI Dashboard Data, 2018).

Building upon the successes of the Higher Education Project and with the understanding that educational institutions play a key role in promoting effective management and leadership skills that have contributed to a wide spectrum of positive changes throughout in a wide range of countries throughout the world, USWDP in Afghanistan supported the establishment a Master's Degree of Educational Leadership and Management (MELM) to train leaders and managers within the education sector in order to ensure effectiveness and quality of education in Afghanistan. This program was designed to produce qualified, professional, skilled, and committed leaders and managers who could have a positive impact on a high quality education sector, and has recently graduated its first cohort of future leaders in the field of education.

Authors

• Shane Hammond, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Benita Barnes, College of Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst