Diagnosis and proposal for improving the Master of Science Program in Pastures and Forages of the EEPF “Indio Hatuey”

Abstract

With the objective of learning the criteria about the content of the courses that integrate the Master of Science Program in Pastures and Forages, of the EEPF “Indio Hatuey”, a diagnosis process was developed, by means of the application of surveys to former students and to professors of the Master program, as well as to professors and researchers of centers of higher education and institutions of science and technological innovation. The surveyed professionals coincided in the need to update such content, according to the advances in the national and international livestock production sector, and suggested the inclusion of new topics and/or courses. The contributions of the Academic Committee members and the bibliography review allowed to formulate a proposal of new structure and content of the Master program, integrated by a group of knowledge pieces closely related among themselves: 1) a basic module (Scientific bases for research): a module of general formation (Fundamentals for the development of agroecological livestock production); two specialization modules, depending on the research topic of the Master program student: 1) Agronomy of pastures and forages; 2) Agroecological systems of animal production. It is concluded that such proposal could contribute to update the thematic content, and its Academic Committee is recommended to consider these results and introduce the modifications proposed, with the objective of guaranteeing a better performance of the graduate Masters in their professional activity.