Concretely, the “Postgraduate Systems Development in Cape Verde and East Timor” (PostCaVET) project aims to build postgraduate management, support information and communication (ICT) systems, develop academic skills through staff training and implement key Master’s courses. This will be achieved through extensive institutional cooperation between the National University of "Timor Leste" and the University of Cape Verde, supported by the expertise of the University of Minho in Portugal.
Enhancing postgraduate administrative management PostCaVET partners will initially carry out a detailed analysis of local conditions, constraints and requirements specific to setting up of postgraduate degrees in East Timor and Cape Verde. On the basis of this analysis, the partners will define a set of administrative and academic regulations specific for postgraduate courses as well as scientific supervision mechanisms and credit transfer procedures. Furthermore, the partners will design a strategy and guidance planning programme to ensure an adequate involvement of societal bodies (industry, commercial companies and others) in the further definition, design and implementation of future postgraduate courses.
Additionally, ICT infrastructure of the Universities of East Timor and Cape Verde will be upgraded by setting up web presence, video-conferencing and e-learning platforms. This activity will provide the technical facilities to support both the new postgraduate management organisation and the new electronic teaching methodologies.
Developing human resources and new postgraduate curricula
The next important set of activities will aim at building administrative and academic skills of lecturers at the two ACP universities. Here, two administrative and two academic staff will be enrolled in an academic management course with special emphasis on postgraduate administration and academic monitoring at the University of Minho. This will strengthen their skills in respect of supporting new Master’s courses in their home universities. The courses will be delivered through combined modes of lecturing, e-learning and video conferencing. This will be followed by the preparation of pedagogic and scientific materials for a Master’s in Education specialising in Assessment and Evaluation Techniques and a Master’s in Information Systems to be implemented at the ACP participating universities. Here, detailed curricula will be designed for each Master’s course based on local needs, as well as the complete package contents of each discipline and all multimedia materials.
In East Timor, the current United Nations Integrated Mission has a key priority, which is
to help poverty reduction, economic growth and the development plan including higher education. Similarly, in Cape Verde, there is a need to develop the newly established public university in order to consolidate higher education in the country and to reduce the costs of sending students abroad on government scholarships.
The PostCaVET project seeks to assist such developments in both countries by strengthening the capacities of their universities in terms of their policy, management, planning and administrative organs to launch and run autonomous postgraduate courses.
