Master's in Health, Safety and Environment in Mozambique: first graduating class!
The TJS International Consortium has won a major contract with Mozambique. It covers the Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation, Commissioning and Start-up (EPCIC) of the operating unit of a huge natural gas field discovered in the north of the country in 2010.
In an effort to support the development of higher education in Mozambique and to improve employability in the field of health, safety, and environment (HSE), the consortium has agreed to fund a HSE master's degree at the country's leading university – the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo (UEM).
France Éducation International has partnered with the University of Technology of Troyes, two research professors and a private expert specialising in the field of oil and gas, to support this initiative. The contract, which was signed in early 2019, will run for 51 months. This is the first privately funded tender that FEI has procured .
In the first phase of the project, FEI and its partners defined the curriculum, set up a distance-learning platform, trained teachers, developed local partnerships, and implemented a communication strategy with students and local companies.
The second phase, which began in February 2020, involves participating in the development of the master's programme for three years, accompanying and ensuring the teaching of the course modules to the first two cohorts of students and continuing to train the local teaching staff.
Successfully adapting to the pandemic
The global health crisis resulted in the postponement of courses that were scheduled in the the first few months of the programme. Faced with the international travel ban, the FEI team quickly proposed to have the students work on personal projects in line with the themes of the master's programme, and then, with the approval of the investor , to continue their projects remotely.
Thanks to the online teaching platform and the unfailing reliability of the FEI team, the French teachers' courses were followed and assimilated by Mozambican students and teachers. Since the investor reported very positive results in the first year of distance learning, the decision was made to maintain the same level of investment from the FEI teaching staff for the second cohort.
Recognised academic success
The first HSE Master’s programme cohort graduated in March 2022. To mark this occasion, the students were invited to present their internship thesis at a seminar in the presence of a hundred representatives of local and international institutional administrative authorities and major oil and gas companies. A number of students were even offered promises of employment by various companies during this seminar.
Gender equality was among the selection criteria for the candidates. Alongside this new cohort of students, the university has decided to welcome an additional cohort which it will oversee independently, using the resources and knowledge gathered by the French teachers on the online platform.
Through these actions, FEI, in its role as an integrator, was able to demonstrate its expertise in terms of employability and establishing a high-level university curriculum adapted to the local context. The teams will do everything in their power to ensure that the second cohort of students achieve the same success as their predecessors. In anticipation of the end of the project in March 2023,the UEM and private companies in the sector are currently engaging in discussions in an effort to make this master’s degree programme a permanent one.