SMP Further & Higher Education (FE/HE) Forum

The SMP welcomed members and their partners to participate in our FE/HE Forum, chaired by Dr Yonah Matemba.

The chat log from the meeting can be found here.

The full recording of the meeting can be found here. Please check the video description for timestamps.

Dr Matemba highlighted the intention to update the SMP’s Directory of FE/HE links between Scotland and Malawi, last refreshed February 2020. The Chair shared progress made against the Forum’s 2018-2020 Action Plan with all targets having been achieved and the Forum agreed an ongoing commitment to:

• Building the SMP’s network of senior contacts across funders and key strategic partners
• Continuing to pursue the issue of accreditation, whereby too often Malawian qualifications do not have the appropriate UK equivalence, noting Yonah’s recent: article
• Exploring the possibility of supporting members to build a consortia-bid, bringing together a number of Scottish and Malawian universities, for future funding programmes

Dr Tracy Morse of the University of Strathclyde expanded on the proposal for a consortia-bid and it was agreed that Forum members would be invited to feed in views and volunteers would be welcomed to a working party to take these forward, reporting back to the next Forum.

Dr Joseph Nagoli, Director of Knowledge & Learning with Malawi’s National Planning Commission spoke of the Government of Malawi’s Priorities for Research and of the potential for Forum members to feed into the related 10-year Implementation Plan of Malawi’s Vision 2063 Strategy.

MaSP CEO Stella Masangano invited senior figures from Malawian universities and colleges represented in the meeting to share their research and collaboration priorities and their counterparts in Scotland joined this open sharing space, offering updates and responses.

SMP CEO David Hope-Jones offered conclusions for the secretariat, reflecting on the meaningful progress made since the last Forum and during this meeting. Actions and next steps are:

• As soon as the 10-year implementation plan becomes available, the SMP will publicise this amongst its membership, encouraging all to work within and towards that.
• Recognition of the importance of alignment between Scottish Research interests with and in Malawi and the priorities of the Government of Malawi.
• Encouragement to all to share updates to the SMP’s Directory of FE/HE links between Scotland and Malawi, to which end, the secretariat will circulate a template to all members working in this sector.
• Towards the collaboration bid, members will be invited in a survey to identify the themes and areas in which they would like to see collective working, enhancing collaboration, co-ordination and capacity-building to make the biggest difference to the greatest number of people.