Diasporas’ contribution in the establishment of PhD Programme of Kiswahili language: a case of the State University of Zanzibar

The State University of Zanzibar (SUZA) is a fast growing university in East Africa. Nevertheless the norm of lacking professors in some disciplines has not been escaped in the establishment of some programmes. This paper presents an analysis of the contribution of Diasporas in the establishment of PhD programme in Kiswahili language. Analysis shows that apart from relying on the academic staff employed by the university, Diaspora can play a positive role in the establishment of the programme by both developing curricula and teaching. This article also presents the findings that to run the programme by using more Diasporas than local based instructors is possible and can work with positive results. However, in such programme students are required to have ICT knowhow in order to be able to engage themselves in discussion for example by using skype and dropbox. This article therefore suggests that when the young universities in developing countries in particular want to establish programmes they should reconsider engaging Diaspora to facilitate their programmes.