Modular SREM

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Coordination) & FACULTY OF EDCATION: (Award of Qualification)

What is the Master in Science, Research, Educational Management?

The Master in Science, Research and Educational Management (MSREM) is a modular cross-disciplinary program providing relevant capacity development to the widest range of stakeholders in the national Science and Technology, Research and Educational Context. The MSREM will utilise individual and institutional performance indicators as point of departure and focus on Public and Private Management of Science, Research, Technology, Innovation and Education accordingly. Focal points would be: the repertoire of state interventions, international best practices and global opportunities, public-private partnerships, (inter-)national actors and networks and their abilities to interact, manage, adapt and be financed

By departing from full-time delivery, UB's MSREM will allow professional capacity development for participants living outside the capital's catchment area, from Botswana as well as from other member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). An accreditation of UB’s modular MSREM with a European agency is under way, making it particularly convenient and attractive for international exchange students and/or regional volunteers to engage in part of UB’s MSREM and to take worldwide recognised credits back to their home institutions. The MSREM also integrates Postgraduate Certificates and Diplomas for participants only interested in selected MSREM modules.

What prompted the development of MSREM?

Based on the understanding that tertiary education systems are destined to stimulate long-term economic growth by educating talented, creative, and capable researchers and by producing inventive, pioneering, high-impact research, the stakeholders in academia, government and industry engage in the transformation of higher education, science and research systems worldwide. Guided by multinational policies and agreements, qualification frameworks, credit transfer and grading systems, accreditation systems, funding formulas, and excellence initiatives, academic institutions are challenging established academic practices and are aligning their teaching, learning, mentoring, and assessment strategies.

As a consequence, higher education and research institutions as well as their counterparts in government are faced with changing degrees of autonomy and responsibility which trigger a wide range of change processes and a need for the professionalisation of management as well as academic and administrative staff. With a shift of focus away from a transactional perspective toward problem-solving, management capabilities, and self-funding as well as the introduction of new methods and tools necessary to accomplish the transformed tasks better and faster, adequate capacity development becomes crucial, but a systematic sector-oriented approach like the MSREM has been missing in the region but is increasingly introduced in the rest of the world.

What Professional & Career-oriented Aims underpin UB’s MDP?

The main aim of the SREM programmes is to contribute to the professionalisation of the academic and scientific community in Botswana and the region. At the end of the programme, graduates will be well prepared to understand and confront complex strategic and operative challenges in the (private or public) educational, science and research sector. These outcomes will be met by gearing the SREM’s contents, assignments, and assessments towards the achievement of five major aims:

• • Compliance with Regional Credit and Qualification Frameworks concerning size and workload distribution of qualification(s) and level descriptors (including covering the graduate attributes of UB’s Learning and Teaching Policy);

  • Equivalence of UB’s SREM with international qualifications as evidenced by an International Accreditation Agency’s Audit during the first year of delivery (exemplified by FIBAA );

  • Development of communication, project management, and leadership skills as expected by the professional world of government, enterprises and other organisations, as exemplified by the findings of the Global MBA Recruiters Survey (provider of GMAT test);

  • Contribution to Botswana’s Economic and Social Development Agenda and Vision 2016 by assuring that graduates entering employment are equipped with knowledge, skills, entrepreneurial talent as well as attitudes to create a society and economy that will bring benefits for the advancement of the country and its people;

  • The integration of some best practices and approaches observed at UB and affiliated institutions worldwide concerning Capacity Building and Quality Management.

The MSREM has been approved by UB Council in June 2010 and shares some of the contents with UB’s other modular programmes. Delivery of the programme is planned during 2011/12 with further Postgraduate Certificates planned to be added to the MSREM to cover all areas of Learning & Teaching, Research Excellence, Leadership, and Services & Outreach.

PG Diploma in Science, Research, Educational Management (PDSREM)

Any one of the PG Certificate plus any 24 credits of other coursework

Master in Science, Research and Educational Management (MSREM)

PG Diploma as stipulated above plus 24 credits of Research: Thesis 600 hours