Enhancing the Structure, Content and Outreach of the Water and Environment Masters’ Programs at Birzeit University

Research & Development
Nov 2016 - Jun 2018

Partners: UNESCO-IHE
Donor: Stichting IHE
Donor Programme: DGIS - UNESCO-IHE Programmatic Cooperation

Middle East and North Africa

The Institute of Environmental and Water Studies (IEWS)/ Birzeit University (BZU) is the forefront of research and academic water and environment institutions in Palestine. The IEWS offers two master programs in Water and Environmental Engineering and Sciences. The IEWS has gained a prestigious local recognition in the year 2014 by the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) as a Centre of Excellence in Palestine. However, it still needs more financial and technical support to enhance its teaching programs, research infrastructure and work environment which will improve the performance in research and teaching. The MoHE itself has already requested the Birzeit University to carefully identify the difference in the outcomes of both Masters’ programs, and to carefully show the difference between both programs and how is that reflected in the offered courses. The programs’ curricula are not very well structured and in depth review of the individual courses dependency on each other is lacking. After around ten years of offering both of the master programs, a critical review of the teaching material, content, quality, teaching tools, and market relevance has never been looked at. This poor status of the programs has resulted over the last five years in declining number of students enrolled in the Engineering and Sciences Masters’ programs. In this project, the structure, content and outcomes of the two masters’ programs will be assessed and fine-tuned, and the courses will be updated based on current societal needs and state-of-the art, and the teaching material and methods will be enhanced.