Posted on February, 26, 2025 at 04:30 pm
In the PBL-BioAfrica project, students tackled real-world problems alongside businesses. The teaching methods were entirely new, and universities opened up to both the business world and communities.
When we talk about innovation in development cooperation, we often think of cities, startups and mobile applications. However, most people work in agriculture, which is a typical driver of the economy in sub-Saharan Africa.
Therefore, the HEI-ICI project PBL-BioAfrica, which ended in August, focused on agriculture and the businesses surrounding it.
“It’s easier to talk about digital and data issues when you’re not hungry,” says the project’s coordinator, Senior Lecturer Eija Laitinen from Häme University of Applied Sciences, with a laugh.
The project partners were universities in Kenya and Zambia, both of which have faced droughts in recent years. North-Eastern and Eastern Kenya have been in a food crisis for several years, while in Zambia, only about half of the population receives the daily recommended calorie intake.
“We’ve had three consecutive years of drought, and farmers who rely on rainfall have been hit hard. Currently, maize is being imported into Zambia from Tanzania to fill the food security gaps,” says Idani Lichilo, project coordinator at Mulungushi University in Kabwe, Zambia.
One important way to address food security problems, he believes, is to approach agriculture as a business to be developed sustainably in a market-oriented type of production: traditionally, small-scale farming in Zambia has been seen more as a way of life rather than a business.
The project focused on teaching agricultural entrepreneurship.
“We wanted to produce skilled professionals who could contribute to value chains,” says Eija Laitinen. “This would make agriculture more efficient and productive.”
The food chain, from farm to table, involves much more than just food production. It encompasses an entire ecosystem, from logistics to waste streams, and the demands of the circular economy and sustainable development.
“There’s been a lot of talk about climate-smart bioeconomy and innovative entrepreneurship education,” Laitinen says.
Creating courses and updating the curriculum were undoubtedly the highlights of the project, says Patience Mshenga, Professor of Agribusiness and Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at Egerton University in Kenya.
"We added courses on climate-smart agriculture and entrepreneurship and held sessions for university staff on problem-based learning."
The project’s acronym, PBL, stands for Problem-Based Learning. The project transformed the universities’ teaching from being teacher-centred to one where students solve local problems, preferably in collaboration with local organisations and businesses.
"We established connections with new businesses," Professor Mshenga says. Egerton University has had links with the business world before, but according to Mshenga, the nature of the collaboration is now changing.
"Previously, universities would reach out to businesses and seek partnerships, but now businesses are approaching us, which is much more beneficial."
The situation at Mulungushi University in Zambia was gloomier: connections with businesses were distant.
“Companies said that graduates from educational institutions lacked skills, and schools complained that companies didn’t offer internships or attachments,” Idani Lichilo says.
In Zambia, students worked on joint projects with the Finnish company Afstor, which makes energy-saving solar stoves, and the NGO Green Living Movement. The stoves also promote health, since they do not produce smoke like traditional charcoal grills, which are typically used in rural Zambia for cooking. Students solved problems related to how the stoves could be marketed and green energy solutions promoted in villages.
“For the students, this was a great way to gain experience and twenty-first century skills and competences, and the communities were pleased,” Lichilo says.
Eija Laitinen says that with the renewed courses and teaching methods, young people are encouraged to pursue entrepreneurship, a concept long familiar in Finnish universities in the field. Students develop work-life and entrepreneurial skills as they tackle real challenges presented by companies.
“For students, this is completely new: they are no longer kept in a university ‘bubble’ and then released into the world to solve problems like a genie out of a bottle after graduation,” Laitinen says.
In May, the University of Nairobi received an award for its innovations in problem-based learning during Nairobi Innovation Week. The approach was commended for providing clear links between academia, industry, communities and government.
“It was wonderful, and the university leadership appreciated this work,” Eija Laitinen says.
In Kenya, Egerton University made the entrepreneurship course compulsory for the entire faculty, inspired by the project, while South Eastern Kenya University went even further.
“They made the course mandatory for all 800,000 students,” Laitinen says.
Students at Egerton University have already started their own businesses. Patience Mshenga says that the university has an incubator where students can develop their business ideas. They are also provided with startup funding from another project that was running concurrently. Students have launched small businesses in food processing, feed production, agricultural machinery, honey production and the hospitality industry.
Parts of Kenya have been suffering from a hunger crisis for several years. Although the rains have been better this year, the crisis is not yet over. One problem is that food logistics are not functioning optimally: there can be hunger in one part of the country while another area has sufficient food for sale, but the food does not reach those in need.
"Some of the students' projects also focus on logistics. They typically involve procuring raw materials, processing them into food and selling it to areas where food is scarce," Mshenga explains.
Towards the end of the project, universities in both Kenya and Zambia began offering open university courses. In both countries, there is a huge demand for education, and the market is filled with various private institutions without guarantees of quality education.
The universities had previously offered general education courses, but they did not provide official certifications, Laitinen says. Now, they have developed open distance and blended learning courses that provide official certificates.
Mulungushi University, for example, recently launched pilot courses on combining dairy and grain production and on beekeeping.
“These are short courses designed inclusively so that people from different backgrounds and levels of education can participate,” says Idani Lichilo.
In Kenya, community-based courses were developed using a problem-based approach, says Patience Mshenga. She provides an example:
In one community, there was already a group of women and young people who had started producing fertilizers from market vegetable waste, but they lacked knowledge about the optimal composition and how to market and sell the fertilizers.
A group of students from environmental studies, agriculture, agribusiness and marketing collaborated with the community to improve and market the fertilizers, and eventually, the participants received course certificates.
"There has been this notion that universities are ivory towers and that rural communities might not know how to engage with them,” Professor Mshenga says.
“In this project, we truly went to the community level to identify problems.”
The recognition of previous courses has also been developed, and if a person has enough recognized courses, they can, according to Mshenga, even be combined into a diploma level certification.
Projects involving consortia of multiple universities are typical in development cooperation, and the largest universities have been involved for a long time. For Mulungushi University, this was the first such experience. The university operates in the relatively small city of Kabwe, and had previously mostly worked in isolation, says Idani Lichilo.
“Now we are part of an ecosystem with partners from both our home country, East Africa and the rest of the world. We can network and exchange ideas.”
During the project, a Problem-Based Learning Net Africa was also established as a community of practice, of which Lichilo was one of the founders.
“Even though the project has ended, we can conduct joint research, make joint project applications and share teaching materials.”
Within Mulungushi University, problem-based teaching has also spread from the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources to other faculties: business, social sciences and engineering.
“I am very proud of that.”
An unexpected result of the project was that as Mulungushi University students became accustomed to working in teams, they decided they should have their own organisation. They therefore formed a student association for the Faculty of Agriculture.
“They have spread the gospel of problem-based learning all over the country, for example at the Agri-Tech Expo, an annual event attended by 20,000 people from across the sector.”
Young people have also gained confidence as regards sharing their views and creating effective synergies and networks in society. Lichilo does not mind at all that the now bolder students sometimes challenge the teachers.
“That’s a good thing. And if they end up being better than me, it just means I’ve done a good job,” he laughs.
“After this project, I see myself more as a coach than a teacher.”
Source: Finnish National Agency for Education