UM supports University of Burundi with development of bachelor's degree programs in IT
Maastricht University (UM) will support the Université de Burundi with the development of educational programs in IT. On Dec. 17, 2024, UM and the Ministry of Education of Burundi signed a contract for this project. The four-year project (total budget €3.5 million) is funded by the World Bank. The first phase started in December 2024. The Department of Advanced Computing Sciences (DACS) of the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE) is leading this project, with significant input from the Maastricht School of Management (MSM).
The project is part of policies of the Burundi government to improve the employability of young people, especially in the area of digital skills. To this end, the government of Burundi established the Institut de Technologies Numeriques (ITN) within the University of Burundi. To support them, the Government of Burundi, supported by the World Bank, sought a foreign university with extensive experience in this field.
UM was selected because the University of Burundi was inspired by the Project Centered Learning approach developed by DACS (PCL, an adaptation of the Problem Based Learning approach). A new undergraduate program in Computer Science will be modeled after FSE's Bachelor of Computer Science. ITN is seeking to extend the PCL approach to other IT-related programs. Furthermore, DACS will advise ITN regarding investment, recruitment, teaching, research and cooperation with local industry. Five PhD candidates will become lecturers at ITN after earning their doctorates at UM.
MSM is supporting ITN in developing an incubator program for promising IT startups and leadership capacity.
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