Ghana

The University of Cape Coast was established in October, 1962 as a University College and in 1971 it became an independent University whose mission was to train teachers for Ghana’s second cycle institutions and the Ministry of Education.   Since then it has steadily expanded its programmes to meet the increasingly complex demands of a technologically advanced society.

As part of this effort the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) asked AHED for assistance in establishing a graduate program, which would be a first in Ghana.

In August 2010, Geňa Hahn of the Université de Montréal (Canada) and Dominique Sotteau, from INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, France) went to Cape Coast for two weeks to conduct a feasibility study looking at institutional support for the program, potential areas of specialization and the research interests of faculty members.

In their report, a summary of discussions with professors in the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, students and university administrators at the UCC, they recommended that a process for creating a graduate program proceed in three stages.

The first, or preparatory stage, would identify those at UCC interested in pursuing advanced degrees and create a research environment. This would include seminars for interested staff, senior students and participants from other universities with the courses to be provided by visiting professors. During this stage some instructors in the Department of Computer Science and IT would complete PhD degrees. The second, or upgrade stage, would have a full contingent of qualified faculty and would involve re-designing the undergraduate curriculum as well as developing the graduate programs. In the final stage UCC would offer graduate degrees in Computer Science and Information Technology.

The first stage will begin in the summer of 2011, when two AHED volunteers—INRIA researchers Yannick Toussaint and Xavier Goaoc—will provide the first two  graduate courses.

AHED Volunteers

Geňa Hahn, PhD (McMaster, Canada), Doctorat d’état (Université Paris-Sud, France) is a professor at the University of Montreal (Canada) in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research/Département d’informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO).

Dominique Sotteau, Doctorat d’état (Université Paris-Sud, France), a former Directeur de recherche of the Laboratory for Computer Science at the National Centre for Scientific Research/Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) was Director of International Relations at the French Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) from 2008-2010.

Phase 1

In the summer of 2011 Xavier Goaoc and Yannick Toussaint began the effort to establish the graduate programme in computer science and information technology.   AHED’s primary partners are the current and former head of the DCSIT, respectively, Jojo Eghan and Daniel Obuobi, who are the driving force at UCC behind this project. Goaoc and Toussaint taught two specialized courses,  Knowledge Extraction from Databases and Texts and Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science, and they also conducted classes in research methodologies.  These are the first steps in providing the faculty in the DCSIT with doctorates. DCSIT lecturers attended the course.  In addition, some research assistants about to begin a Master’s degree were included in the class.  The topics covered during the courses–data mining, lattices, graph theory, operations research, analysis of algorithms etc.–opened new perspectives to many of the students, which is crucial if  they are to formulate their own PhD projects.

Looking forward to the next steps in Stage 1 the volunteers identified gaps in knowledge of the foundations in computer science, which suggested that a revision to the DCSIT undergraduate curriculum is needed; the training should be separated into consolidation courses (strengthening the current curriculum) and research training (insisting on basic skills for teaching/research and exposure to new areas). The current and former heads of department continue to be active in support of the project, and the University continues to support the DCSIT project of upgrading the academic qualifications of their faculty to the doctoral level.

AHED Volunteers

Xavier Goaoc, PhD (Université Nancy 2, France), has been a researcher at the French Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) since 2005.

Yannick Toussaint, PhD (University of Toulouse) is researcher at Institut National de Recherche en Informatique (INRIA) on the Orpailleur team in Nancy, France.