NEWS:

9 Jun, 2016


Prof Otunga: the newly appointed first board chairperson of the advisory council
Professor Ruth Otunga from the University of Eldoret in Kenya has been elected first board chairperson for the regional PhD programme in Aquaculture and Fisheries hosted at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) following the Regional Academic Advisory Board Meeting held at Crossroads Hotel last week.

Speaking at the event, Head of Aquaculture and Fisheries Science Department at LUANAR said the board will be responsible for quality assurance in the implementation of this regional PhD program in Aquaculture and Fisheries which is housed in his department.

“In addition to being responsible for quality assurance, the Board will also be responsible in phasing out the programme to other universities and deciding on courses that maybe done in other member universities as part of the joint degree training,” he said.

The following were the members appointed into the advisory board: Dr Steven John Balirwa from National Research Council of Uganda, Professor Jay Stauffer Junior- Pennsylvania State University (USA), Professor Otunga, Professor Emmanuel Kaunda- LUANAR Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor Warwick Sauer- Rhodes University (South Africa), Dr Daniel Jamu- Fish Project (Malawi) and Dr Malcolm Beveridge- Director of Aquaculture and Genetics at World Fish Centre in Zambia.

Speaking in an interview on the side-lines of the meeting, Otunga hailed the composition of the board, which she said this will help bring expertise from different countries into the programme.

She also pledged the board’s full support towards the programme and functions of the secretariat at LUANAR: “I am happy that the programme is hosted by LUANAR, which demonstrated good capacity to host the programme amongst several universities within the region including my University. We are going to offer our full support to LUANAR for successful implementation of the programme.”

LUANAR was chosen amongst a group of universities in Eastern and Southern Africa to host the regional PhD programme in 2009 but there was no academic board to oversee the implementation of the programme, which is patronised by 55 universities from 22 African countries including some West African countries.


Written By: Patricia Nkhoma