Exchange Students between Makerere University (Uganda) and University of Borås (Sweden)
by Richard Batte
Makerere University, the East African School of Library and Information Science (EASLIS), College of Computing and Information Science, received funding from the Swedish Council for Higher Education through the Linnaeus-Palme programme and the European Union through the Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (ICM). The Swedish Council for Higher Education is financing the “Sustainable Internationalisation in Library and Information Science Education”, and the Erasmus+ICM bankrolls the “Enhanced, Sustainable and Integrated Internationalisation”. The ultimate objective of the two projects is to support international students and staff exchange between the EASLIS and the Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS), Faculty of Librarianship, Information, Education and Information Technology.
The Linnaeus-Palme programme aims to establish long-term mutual collaborations with universities in low-and middle-income countries; by integrating global perspectives, to improve the quality of higher education. The Erasmus+ICM, is an exchange programme open to countries outside the traditional Erasmus+ areas. The Erasmus+ project not only supports students, but also teachers, administrative staff and, for example, librarians can apply for exchanges. The Erasmus+ project has partner countries from Rwanda, Albania, Brazil, Sweden, Canada, Iran and China.
The two projects run for four years (2020-2023), supporting twenty-three (23) south-north-north-south short exchanges, involving fourteen (14) staff and nine (9) students between EASLIS and SSLIS. Student mobilities are organised during the Autumn Semester (August 2021-January 2022). On 1st September 2021, the first cohort of six (06) students; three (3) on Linnaeus Palme and three (3) on Erasmus+ICM left EASLIS to SSLIS for a period of five (5) months and they returned on 22nd January 2022. The student exchange mobility also involves transfer of credits between the two universities. The next student exchange will take place next in August 2022; and in the second quarter of the year, the first staff mobility is envisaged as the world returns to normalcy.
About the Author
Richard Batte is the Project Coordinator for the “Sustainable Internationalisation in Library and Information Science Education”, and the “Enhanced, Sustainable and Integrated Internationalisation” projects at Makerere University, Kampala Uganda.
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