Training Plant Breeders for Africa: Successes and Challenges at Makerere University, Uganda.

Makerere University (Uganda) has developed a unique approach to graduate plant-breeding training.  Theoretical coursework and practical skill development enables graduates to independently manage breeding programs meeting smallholder and crop value-chain needs in the African context.  AGRA (Alliance for a Green revolution in Africa) and other partners have helped shape Makerere’s program, since 2008 supporting 58 PhD and 117 MSc students from 20 sub-Saharan countries, who are now employed in relevant positions in the region.  Within-region training improves contextualization and inter-regional cooperation, lowers cost, promotes retention of graduates, and maintains contact with family and home institutions.  Cooperation with national/international research organizations, and regional and US universities (Iowa State, Cornell, North Carolina State) have strengthened the program. 

Coursework was initiated for PhD’s, and both levels have two intense coursework semesters, coordinated across courses, including social sciences and other skills. E-curriculum materials to enhance coursework have been developed by Iowa State University (“Plant Breeding E-Learning in Africa”), in cooperation with Makerere, Kwame-Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (Ghana), University of KwaZulu-Natal (S Africa) and AGRA.  AGRA sponsors cohorts of 15 MSc students, their internships with private and public seed suppliers, and an in-house cowpea breeding program.  Students’ theses target critical regional needs, with most embedded in cultivar development programs where their results contribute to the breeding pipeline.

Challenges include students’ inadequate backgrounds, limited skills of independent study, reasoning and synthesis, compromised English, inadequate staffing and funding, institutional politics, sub-optimal facilities, and insufficient mentoring/supervision.

Successful approaches have included:

-- Selecting students jointly with national educational and research institutions

-- Students’ accommodation, classes and research being on the university farm

-- Employing our MSc graduates to teach and direct the program after completing external PhD’s

-- Engaging MSc teaching assistants from previous cohorts

Funding through World Bank’s African Centers of Excellence affirms and stimulates the success of Makerere’s Regional Center for Crop Improvement (MaRCCI).