Plant Breeding Graduate Education in Africa Via an Innovative e-Learning Partnership

Africa needs a critical mass of plant breeders to effectively and independently manage, scale up breeding programs, and market seed of improved crop varieties to accelerate growth in the emerging African markets to ensure food security. With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an innovative educational partnership has been formed between Iowa State University (ISU) and three universities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana), University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), and Makerere University (Uganda). ISU’s Agronomy Department, a leader in plant breeding education with experience in developing e-learning materials and online graduate programs, has joined with faculty members from the ISU Departments of Agricultural Education & Studies, Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Horticulture and the School of Education, as well as staff from two of ISU’s educational technology centers (Brenton Center for Agricultural Instruction & Technology Transfer and the Agronomy Distance Programs Development Lab) to bring knowledge and expertise to the project. The ISU partners have developed and are continuing to develop state-of-the-art curriculum e-modules covering modern breeding approaches and technologies that will be freely available and used by any institution in the world. E-learning modules and applied learning activities will be incorporated into residential/on-campus Master of Science in Plant Breeding programs at the Africa universities. Modules delivered are currently being used in Africa. Other collaborating organizations affiliated with the project include the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) of the CGIAR Generation Challenge Program.