The University of Botswana (UB) in partnership with the African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) Thursday launched a new programme called the collaborative Master of Research and Public Policy to help enhance research evidence for public policy, strengthen graduate education in social science and further capacity building for research at the university.
“The programme has 13 courses and an eight week internship. Students are expected to complete it in four semesters and the minimum requirement is a CGPA of 2.8. We accommodate students from different disciplines and we deliver our course material using different methodologies,” said Dr Bashi Mothusi, Head of Department of the Department of Political and Administrative Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences.
He said, “This is a very interesting programme and encourage those of you who haven’t applied to do so before the 30th April 2018. We give research students research skills that they need to collect and analyse data that can be used to inform the policy process. Upon completion of their studies our students will confidently and rightly so, be called policy analysts. The sky is the limit for them because they can work in any organization.”
The Master of Research and Public Policy is a collaborative programme between the African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) and 13 universities across Africa which delivers the course uniformly using a common curriculum and award an internationally recognized degree.
The two year course is delivered through a combination of innovative pedagogy encompassing interactive teaching approaches such as simulations, debates, role plays and prtoject based learning, field experiences and learning through case studies.
