Supported by the EU and the ACP Group of States, this three-year project is a collaboration between the University of Southampton and the Universities of Ghana and Cape Coast in Ghana and the University of Ibadan in Nigeria to improve training in the population sciences, as well as studying the demography of two urban slums in Accra.
Practical experience in collecting and analysing information in the real world is a skill that is missing from many undergraduate and postgraduate demography courses. EDULINK PopTRCD aims to improve the quality of learning and teaching at HEIs in Africa and UK through integration of practical field experience in the postgraduate curricula of population studies students at the universities of Southampton, Ghana, Cape Coast (Ghana), Ibadan, and Sierra Leone.
Three specific activities have been designed to achieve these objectives:
So far the project has set up a research site in the urban slums that are being studied and have conducted one round of interviews with the residents. These results are being analysed by the students themselves and will be presented soon. The next round of the survey will occur soon, with those students who took part in the first survey round now becoming the supervisors.
The curriculum in the Universities are being assessed and changed to incorporate this information and include participation in the collection and analysis of data as a core part of a research methods module.
From this project it is hoped that in depth information will also be found out regarding the residents of the urban slums being interviewed, including their health, mobility, living conditions and wealth.