One of the top priorities in the cooperation between the IEE and the Faculties of Management and Economics at Afghan Universities is the stabilization of Bachelor Programs in Economics and Business Administration. After having concentrated on the University of Kabul beginning in 2002, the continued financial support offered by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) helped to swiftly extend the academic cooperation to other Afghan universities in the following years. The overall target of this cooperation is to assist the partner faculties in Afghanistan in their efforts to rehabilitate learning and teaching services and to integrate themselves into the global campus. For this purpose, the IEE in cooperation with the colleagues from Afghanistan and the RUB Faculty of Economics and Business Administration created a set of activities which aim at restructuring the bachelor curriculum, train Afghan lecturers and to provide them and their students with appropriate teaching and learning material. RUB Cooperating ChairsPartner Faculties in Afghanistan
- Kabul (since mid of the 1960ies, revitalised in 2002)
- Balkh
 (since 2004)
- Herat (since 2004)
- Nangarhar (since 2004)
- Kandahar (since 2008)
- Khost (since (2008)
- Bamyan (since 2009)
- Faryab (since 2010)
Targets
- Up-to-date uniform BSc-curriculum for all faculties
- Backing of the new curriculum by the production of
teaching and learning material (Dari & English)
- Expanding the literature base at cooperating faculties
- Enabling the cooperating faculties to teach the new BSc-curriculum
- Preparation of lecturers for admission to Master-programs
Results
- New uniform 3-years BSc-Program in Management and Economics available at all partner faculties (mid 2004)
- Complete set of textbooks (11 books in English and 11 in Dari) for the BSc-program handed over to Afghan partners (mid 2004 and mid 2005, 11 000 copies in total)
- Between 2004 and 2009 56 young Afghan lecturers passed more than 600 months of BSc-oriented training at RUB
- 17 of these lecturers qualified by the end of 2007 for the participation in the MSc-program in Management and Economics at RUB and started with their studies in early 2008
Future Perspectives
- Continuation of the BSc-Training with a new group of 26 young Afghan lecturers in 2010/11
- Graduation of the first batch of young Afghan student-professors from the MSc-program at RUB in late February 2010
- Further strengthening of faculties by training more young lecturers on the new BSc-curriculum and by producing more young lecturers with MSc-degrees
- Accreditation of the uniform BSc Program
- Implementing quality control
- Production of quadrilingual dictionary for management and economics
- Initiating and promoting research in Afghanistan
- Future faculty days
- Continuation of the MSc-program
- Admission of the best Afghan student-professors PhD-Programs
Workshop and Conference - "Strengthening Higher Education in Management and Economics in Afghanistan" - November 2008
The results achieved in recent years in the long-standing cooperation between RUB and the Afghan Ministry of Education were evaluated during a workshop and conferenc hosted by the IEE on November 19 - 21, 2008. The two-day workshop was attended by the Rectors of the Universities of Kabul, Balkh, Herat, Nangarhar and Khost and the Deans of their Faculties of Economics and Management.
Workshop Participants
The guests from Afghanistan together with Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Löwenstein and Dr. Sami Noor (photo: Damian Gorczany).
Together with Afghan student professors currently engaged in the Lecturer Training and/or the MSc Program at RUB, representatives of the DAAD and the World Bank as the main sponsors and the staff of the IEE, the guests from Afghanistan explored also future perspectives in German-Afghan academic cooperation. At the end of the two-day workshop the Rectors of the Universities of Kabul, Balkh, Herat, Nangarhar and Khost and the Deans of their Faculties of Economics and Managementcommitted to implement the unified BSc curriculum in full with the beginning of the year 2010. In addition, they endorsed the proposal put forward by Prof. Loewenstein and the IEE staff to apply for formal accreditation of the BSc Program in Management and Economics.
These and other decisions reached during the two-day workshop were presented to a larger audience on Friday, 21 November 2008 at a conference hosted by the IEE and RUB under the auspices of HE Prof. Dr. Maliha Zulfacar, the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to Germany.
Panel Discussion at the Conference
Panelists (from left to right): Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Löwenstein, Dr. Alexander Kupfer (DAAD), HE Prof. Dr. Maliha Zulfacar, Prof. Dr. Hamidullah Amin (Rector Kabul University); Dr. Naim Assad (Rector Herat University) and Abdul Haj Sofizada (SHEP World Bank)
For more detailed information about the workshop and conference proceedings, decisions and participants, please take a look at the conference report published in the IEE News No. 9 (pp. 10-12):
IEE News No. 9, January 2009
Country-wide Academic Training for Economic and Social Development of Afghanistan – Cooperation of Afghanistan and Germany in Management and Economics - 14 July 2009
The Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Dadfar, Prof. Dr. Löwenstein and the rectors of the universities of Kabul, Herat, Balkh, Nangarhar, Kandahar and Khost invited the press to report on the achievements and perspectives of academic cooperation between Afghan universities and the Ruhr-University Bochum in Management and Economics. At the same occasion a far reaching MoU (s. left - click to enlarge) was signed by all stakeholders which officially was put into operation by the Afghan Government in autumn 2009.
We are indebted to the German Foreign Office and to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for the continous support of the academic cooperation between RUB and the Afghan faculties of Economics and Business Administration.
The following reports / posters give you a short impression on the Bachelor Training in Management and Economics at RUB:
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