Commonwealth Forests

Chapter 5 Training at professional and technical levels
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION IN FORESTRY

Professional forestry education at Commonwealth universities: outlook

The teaching of forestry at Commonwealth universities faces some significant challenges. In countries such as the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, forestry no longer has the attraction for students that it once did, despite the availability of jobs. Similar trends are reported from the African forestry universities (Temu et al.. 2006). The universities have tried various tactics to stop this decline, with varying degrees of success.

It is apparent that many programmes at traditional forestry universities are failing to adapt to the changing requirements for foresters, creating an opportunity for new programmes to develop in Canada. For example, the forest management programmes at the Universities of British Columbia and Northern British Columbia are experiencing difficulties with local recruitment (although international recruitment is increasing at UBC), whereas a new programme developing at Thompson Rivers University, which is much more fl exible is in its approach, appears to be successful.

Forestry programmes in some of the African countries do not appear to have issues with student numbers. Instead, there are a range of other problems, including lack of teaching capacity and lack of equipment in some universities (Dyer and Wingfield 2004). Many of the African forestry programmes have adapted to the changing needs of forestry professionals, strengthening the social aspects of forestry and providing better opportunities for fields such as agro-forestry. In some quarters, there is a strong feeling that forestry education should better address the needs of individual countries in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically poverty eradication and food security, in addition to the global needs of employment and a clean environment.

A major problem facing the forestry programmes in most Commonwealth universities is the way in which they are viewed within their respective universities. Forestry is often seen as little more than technical training, and is sometimes viewed as a subject taken as a last resort by struggling students. This view was not helped by some schools dropping their entry standards in an attempt to bolster applications. There is little evidence of forestry being seen on an equal footing to other disciplines, a problem that is

particularly acute because of the affinity of most programmes with the natural sciences. This is a common problem for subjects that span a number of basic disciplines.

Finally, the Commonwealth provides a huge potential for networking, yet this is hardly used. There are no opportunities such as the Erasmus Mundus programme of the European Union, despite the clear possibilities for developing such exchanges. Furthermore, we have not been successful in training students with an international perspective who could play an active role in some of the critical discussions surrounding the future of the world’s forests (El-Lakany 2004). There is a significant lack of cooperation and coordination amongst the forestry programmes offered by Commonwealth universities. Modern technologies, such as distance education, have opened up enormous opportunities, but to date have not been properly exploited. Establishing a useful and production system for coordination and collaboration amongst the different universities offering professional forestry programmes throughout the Commonwealth would be an invaluable objective.