Call for Enquiry – Dr. Femi Jegede : +2348022981214;  Pax: +2347034537915
email : [email protected]

INSTITUTE OF AFRICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN

in Collaboration with

Ofure (Pax) Integral Research and Development Initiative (A SUBSIDIARY OF PAXHERBALS), EWU, EDO STATE, NIGERIA

and

TRANS4M CENTER FOR INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

IS OFFERING A

MASTER OF ARTS DEGREE PROGRAMME

IN

TRANSFORMATION STUDIES IN AFRICA (TSA)

PREAMBLE

Recent concerns in the global society are indicative of an awareness that the era of runaway resource exploitation is nearing its end. The demand for ‘green’ technologies and approaches is one aspect of this growing awareness. Toward this goal, a program called Transformation Studies in Africa (TSA) is designed to stimulate new templates for conducting research in and for Africa.

Research in transformation studies is capable of transforming African societies in a holistic dimension, pool together the quantum of knowledge available in the academia and as well critically takes into consideration local parameters.

The program also puts into consideration all relevant practices from elsewhere. The core purpose of the programme is to ensure a consciously transdisciplinary, contextualized, collaborative, participatory, sustainable and pro-active approach to tackling the problems of social development in tandem with the generation of knowledge and the production of material benefits for the transformation of the episteme and economy of development in African societies.

The Master of Arts course in Transformation Studies in Africa (TSA) is innovation-driven and it is action-research based. The programme is beneficial to individuals (and their organizations and/or communities) seeking to become agents of development and the transformation in their respective communities. Prospective candidates will, therefore, be partakers in innovation-driven Research for Integral Development and will be professional agents of transformation.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE PROGRAMME

The programme builds upon an innovative and dynamic approach to integral development, connecting all realms of living human system. The programme particularly interlinks nature, community, culture, spirituality, science, systems and technology, as well as enterprise and economics. Transforming the notion of individual research for personal esteem, this programme engages you with your immediate community, organization and polity, towards genuine commitment to national and global development.

The programme, therefore, is designed to bring the needed transformation into your life, your organisations, Africa and the globe. To this end, participants from the private, public, civic and environmental sectors are invited. It purposefully draws on the shared knowledge and creativity of all cultures to adequately meet the social and economic needs of their organizations and communities. Through modular courses and distinctive processes of co-evolution, you will be hosted in – and connected to – diverse cultural contexts and existing Integral Development Centers from Africa to the Middle East, to Europe.

At a time of failing international financial systems and market mechanisms as well as the conundrum regarding the long term sustainability of the existing “western” economic paradigm, the program introduces an Integral Worlds approach to Development. It draws on the best of the South and East, North, West and Center – in ecological, cultural, economic, socio-political and technological terms.

Target groups

AGENTS OF INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT

o       We invite people in key positions in their organisations, companies and agencies. We are particularly interested in those who are keen to make a tangible contribution to their society – individually & collectively.

o      Organizations and Communities:  This program is not just targeted at individuals, but at organisations and communities as a whole. Ideally, we welcome two or three participants from a particular organization or community, working together not only in their research but also towards an intervention into specific development issues in their organisation, company or agencies, etc.

o Sectors: all sectors of society – public, private, civic, environmental

TARGET

The programme is intended to attract students from all over Africa and other parts of the world. We are inviting development practitioners and intending practitioners who will like to enrich and update their knowledge as to how to bring about integral development in their societies. It also attracts development-minded scholars and researchers who are interested in working in collaborative networks with people from the public and private sectors of development interventions and with other agents at the indigenous, grassroots level. Government ministries, agencies, parastatals and private companies, banks, the Police, the Army, other security agencies, etc. are particularly encouraged to sponsor their staff for this programme. Because of the cocreative nature of this programme, we would give preference to ministries and agencies who can sponsor at least two staff at a time to ensure maximum impact on their respective ‘contexts’ after the program.

ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Candidates for admission into the M.A in Transformation Studies in Africa programme shall be first degree holders in the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities and other related academic disciplines of the University of Ibadan or of other degree awarding institution recognized by the Senate of the University of Ibadan.

PROGRAMME DURATION

A minimum of three semesters and a maximum of five semesters for full-time students, while part-time students will be exposed to a minimum of five semesters and a maximum of seven semesters.

EXAMINATION AND GRADING

Grading for each course shall be interpreted according to the regulation of Postgraduate school, University of Ibadan.

MODE OF INSTRUCTION

Course delivery shall be by lectures, practicals and internship.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Given the fact that transformation studies are multidisciplinary and a growing field with increasing demand for its service globally, the training enables you to serve as transformation agents in all spheres of human endeavours especially in community, industrial and state development and security agencies. You are, by the nature of the training, professional interventionists to initiate new ideas by interpreting phenomena towards transformation. There are job opportunities for you in virtually all spheres of human endeavours including Banking, Insurance and other industries. Graduates in transformation study can work as transformation agents and community developers. The training is also able to enlist you among a new category of scholars who will teach in Universities where transformation studies will be established as either a Department or Faculty. 

The following are some of the course you would be taught as Master degree student in Transformation Studies in Africa: Integral research methodology, African Epistemology, Ontology, Transformational Economics, Critical Theory, Integral Development, Africology, The Crises of Research in Africa, Coevolving Transformation, Integral Enterprise/ownership, community development.

For application, log in to the website of the Postgraduate School, University of Ibadan: www.pgschool.ui.edu.ng