The Pan-African School for Emerging Astronomers (PASEA) 2024 was the sixth in the series of this school which was first hosted in Abuja, Nigeria as the West African International Summer School for Young Astronomers (WAISSYA) in 2013. This edition of the Summer School was hosted by the Monastir Science Palace, Tunisia from 28th August 2024 to 6th September 2024. It was jointly facilitated by the West African Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (WAROAD) through the Centre for Basic Space Science, Nsukka Nigeria and the Arab World Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (AWROAD), who worked closely with the host organization Monastir Science Palace, Tunisia) in collaboration with professional astronomers and scientists from across the globe.
The major objectives of PASEA 2024 remain to: strengthen students’ scientific thinking, build their capacity and support alumni to pursue further studies in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related fields thereby creating home-grown scientists, innovators, inventors and users of facilities like: MeerKAT, SALT and African Millimeter Telescope. All these are in addition to building scientific communities across Africa with over 300 alumni and 20 inquiry-trained instructors in Astronomy and Astrophysics.
PASEA 2024 started with a one-week Pre-school Workshop for instructors on inquiry-based method of teaching which was then followed by another one-week of Parallel Streams for participants: undergraduate stream which covers the basics of astronomy/space science and post-graduate stream which focuses on front-line research and computing. Explicitly, PASEA 2024 combined interactive lectures, problem-solving sessions, hand-on experience and inquiry-based activities to drive home the human capacity needs of African students. The school consists of a compact lecture series and activities covering the basics of astronomy and space science as well as some advanced astronomy courses. In a nutshell, lessons delivered during PASEA 2024 combined teaching scientific thinking along with scientific content, and incorporating rigorous assessment to evaluate the effectiveness of our program. All these helped in transferring knowledge, building skills for teaching/learning as well as boosting the interest of participants in Astronomy and other STEM related fields of endeavour.
PASEA 2024 was able to expose participants to pursue and develop their interest in STEM, inspire scientific curiosity and enhance their practice of scientific thinking; while instructors have the opportunity of exchanging educational ideas between Africa and the rest of the world. In addition, instructors were able to learn how to design interactive lessons, deliver lectures via inquiry-based method of teaching, exchange teaching ideas across cultures and also replicate these ideas in their regular classrooms. Through this global partnership, PASEA 2024 has helped us to lay a very good foundation for sustained involvement of African students in STEM research and innovation.
Out of a total of 39 participants that took part in PASEA 2024, we had 22 undergraduates and 17 post-graduates. Incidentally, all the 17 post-graduate participants are students from various universities from across Africa. Again, out of 22 undergraduate participants, 3 are secondary school teachers, 2 works in science Centres, while the remaining 17 participants are students from various universities across Africa.
The PASEA 2024 pre-school survey research conducted on the first day of the program and the post-school survey research conducted on the last day showed that our program was very influential for the intending choice of career/study of over 80% of the participants. In addition, the participants commended the organizers of PASEA 2024 for their invaluable contributions to their social and academic life through the opportunity given to them to partake in the program.