2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper presents a full study plan for a multi-year initiative that integrates engineering-education capacity building with the technical deployment of renewable-energy (RE) education in Burundi. Anchored in a national needs analysis—limited electricity access, weak digital learning infrastructure, and low female participation in STEM—the project proposes a coordinated higher-education response spanning curriculum, laboratories, ICT backbone, industry engagement, and policy support. The work aligns with the ASEE International Division’s focus on global engineering education and capacity development and is submitted as a full paper plan.
Pedagogically, the project will co-design new RE and ICT curricula with Burundian stakeholders, emphasizing active, problem- and project-based learning, entrepreneurship, and contextualized education approaches. A parallel faculty development program will strengthen instructors’ pedagogy and up-to-date technical knowledge. Technically, the plan establishes and upgrades RE teaching laboratories to deliver hands-on competencies for design, implementation, and maintenance of RE systems, while strengthening university ICT infrastructure to enable reliable access to remote and blended learning. To ensure relevance and employability, the project embeds structured industry participation (internships, mentoring, and co-developed learning tasks) and includes measures to increase women’s participation across all activities. Finally, a policy workstream collaborates with national authorities to prepare an RE education framework that mainstreams RE content and practical training within higher education. Collectively, these components are designed to move beyond isolated trainings toward an institutional, sustainable model for RE capacity and workforce development.
Methods encompass stakeholder co-design workshops; staged installation and commissioning of laboratories; ICT upgrades; faculty institutes; industry-linked experiential learning; and policy working groups. Evaluation will combine quantitative and qualitative indicators aligned to engineering-education outcomes (curricular adoption, lab utilization and competency gains, instructor development), access and equity (participation of women), and innovation/employability (industry engagement and entrepreneurial activity). The study will report baseline conditions, data-collection instruments, analytic approaches, and continuous-improvement loops across the project’s phases. Anticipated contributions to ASEE readers include a transferable implementation and assessment framework for RE-focused capacity building in low-resource contexts; lessons on aligning pedagogy, infrastructure, and policy; and guidance on partnering with industry to close skill gaps while advancing national sustainability goals.
Keywords: international engineering education; capacity building; renewable-energy laboratories; curriculum co-design; ICT-enabled learning; industry–university collaboration; gender inclusivity; policy frameworks.