RGSMA’s Strategy for Change.

The scope of this project is vast and intended to grow through networking. As of this moment there are 6 University that span across the African content that have agreed to come together, share resource and enable the minds of tomorrow.

RGSM Africa’s network of students include:

• University of Botswana (Botswana)
• Botswana College of Agriculture (Botswana)
• University of Namibia (Namibia)
• University of South Africa (South Africa)
• Bahir Dar University (Ethiopia)
• National University of Science and Technology (Zimbabwe)

Currently there are existing MSC and PhD programs at a number of institutions in sub-Sahara Africa but each program is under-subscribed in terms of number of students and number of qualified teachers to teach a wide range of courses in pure and applied mathematics. The goal of the programme is to create a program that can not only feed University with potential graduate students but also, through the fruits of the course, produce the intellects that will fashion a new generation of qualified teachers.

To achieve this goal we will adopt two strategies as follows:

1. To train students locally at institutions possessing a graduate program where the tuition fees are low. Through the Simons Foundation grant, we will be able to increase the number of students enrolling for the program. This strategy will have more impact on the number of students trained at the end of the grant period.
   
2. To complement the graduate program at the University of Botswana by bringing all the students to Botswana. This strategy has the advantage that the University of Botswana is better funded and has more facilities than the other universities. Because the tuition fees at the University of Botswana are higher than the other institutions, this strategy might result in fewer graduates at the end of the training and research period. We intend to pursue both strategies.

For each strategy, we will allow for co-supervision of students. Each student will have a supervisor at the local institution and a co-supervisor at another institution. The network will attract students from sub-Sahara African countries. Graduates from the program will be employed by institutions of higher learning and research institutions in the mathematical sciences.