Education and Training

MA Peace and Conflict Resolution

This important programme was launched with its first intake in February 2022.

It aims to equip students with a thorough understanding of the nature of peace and challenges in its fulfilment. In addition to generic principles, it will enable students to locate the issue of peace and conflict resolution within their own experience and, where appropriate, to seek nonviolent solutions.

One of the maxims of peace studies is that while conflict is inevitable, the use of violence is a choice. This applies whether the conflict is between individuals, between groups or between nations. Accordingly, two major reasons for offering degrees in peace studies are to motivate people to choose nonviolent ways of dealing with the inevitable conflicts which occur, and to educate them about the range of nonviolent options available.

Within the Institute, we see this Master’s programme as central to all that we do:

• It will broaden an understanding within society of essential principles of peace and conflict resolution
•  It will assist successive generations of students in the practical application of the subject to real-world problems
• It will contribute to the reputation of Seychelles as a peace-loving nation in which people of different ethnicities co-exist without conflict
•  It will enable students to undertake research through action learning, thereby laying a foundation for enduring interactions.

A key feature is the partnership between the University of Seychelles and Durban University of Technology, where the International Centre for Nonviolence is one of Africa’s best-known hubs for peace education and research.

Although much of the programme is by distance learning, it also includes intensive weeks when DUT lecturers come to Seychelles to interact directly with students.

Another feature is the link with the Department of Law at UniSey. Two of the six taught modules are in Law subjects, which are taught locally.

Because of its mixed-mode pattern of learning, it is designed especially for students who are in full-time employment. This will appeal to students with an interesting mix of professional experience, ranging from the police service and foreign affairs, the prison service and intelligence, teaching and social work.

For more information about the programme, https://unisey.ac.sc/course/peace-and-conflict-resolution-ma/