Regional

UN Launches Online University

The Global Virtual University (GVU) was launched June 17 with a view to ensuring that developing countries have a hand in the new information and communications technology explosion.

GVU will promote an international network of equal-partner universities and institutions delivering e-learning courses and programs with a global outreach focused on the environment and development. These institutions—organized as a branch of the UN University with an administrative center in Arendal, Norway—will issue common diplomas and will develop joint academic degrees.

The university will be administered by the United Nations Environment Program’s partner, Global Resource Information Database, and will include Norway’s Adger University College among its core partners.

“I am pleased to know that African universities from Ghana, Uganda and South Africa are among the participants,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at the launching ceremony of GVU in a message delivered by the UN University Rector, Hans van Ginkel.

— Accra Mail
June 19, 2003

Angola

Agostinho Neto’s Faculty Strike

Academic staff and workers of Agostinho Neto University, Angola’s only public university, have been on strike since June 12 and at the time of writing, July 30, were still on strike.

The demands of those on strike call for improved wages and working conditions, medical assistance and the full payment of salary arrears. The public university lecturers are also demanding that the Angolan Government join the “Arucha Convention” on the recognition of qualifications in higher education in Africa.

— Angola Press Agency
July 14, 2003

The Democratic Republic of the Congo

Kinshasa University, Cisco Systems Provide Hope for the Future

Few institutions in Congo have escaped the country’s last five years of war and destruction, and the University of Kinshasa, built by its Belgian founders to be central Africa’s biggest and best, is no exception.

The science faculty’s library now houses fewer than 300 books, and the volunteers who work there complain that all are out of date and half are in languages nobody speaks. Degree courses are supposed to last five years, but strikes by unpaid lecturers and riots by angry students mean the academic year often runs up to a year late.

However, information technology (IT) courses at the university are providing some with hope for the future. Cellular telephones and e-mail are booming in a country whose fixed-line services have long since decayed, and the firms supplying the technology need recruits with modern IT skills. A course sponsored by the United Nations and Cisco, an American software firm, is providing just such an education to a handful of students studying how to build networks and link them to the Internet. All learning is done online, and tests are sent off to exam centers continents away.

The UN-Cisco partnership is one that was launched at the G-8 Summit in 2000 and named the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Initiative. Programs similar to the one at Kinshasa University are available in more than half of the world’s LDCs that suffer from poverty, as well as from weak human resources and economic institutions.

— The Economist
July 5, 2003

The Gambia

Education Policy: A Success Story

In 1996, the Gambian government set itself development goals in a document entitled “Vision 2020: The Gambia Incorporated,” which set education at the center of a drive toward a thriving free-market economy.

The new education policy and action plan laid great stress on basic education (first nine years); increasing access and quality; expanding senior secondary education (years 10 to 12) to significantly improve transition rates; closing the gender gap; skills training; developing scientific and technological competencies; improving literacy and numeracy; and strengthening higher education through the creation of a national university.

Five years ago, the United Nations set the Millennium Development Goals of education for all (EFA) by 2015. In this, the Gambia’s objective is to provide at least nine years of good-quality schooling to all Gambian children by 2015. Since that objective was set, the gross enrollment ratio has increased from 44 to 87 percent. If this pace is maintained, a 100-percent ratio could be reached in only a few years, well before the target year of 2015. An important element in achieving the EFA goals depends on how fast the Gambia can increase female enrollment, retention and performance. In 1996, girls constituted only 42 percent of enrollment in grades one to nine and nearly 35 percent in grades 10 to 12. Recent 2003 figures place basic enrollment at 82 percent, with similar increases at the secondary level.

The government’s policy for higher education placed emphasis on consolidating and expanding vocational and technical training facilities. The policy also created the first-ever university in the country (1999) — University of The Gambia — granting degrees in education, nursing and health sciences, medicine, engineering, technology, hotel and tourism management and the arts.

The success that the Gambia has achieved in implementing its education policy has been attributed to a number of factors, the two most prominent being an extraordinarily committed ministry and executive coupled with an allocation of over one-fourth of the national budget on education. Community-based efforts are also strongly supported, as are those of nongovernmental organizations. Religious groups pre-date the government in the provision of education, and they still play a prominent role in the sector.

— The UN Chronicle
Issue 2, 2003

Ghana

Legon Campus Forced to Cut Enrollments

The University of Ghana Legon has announced that student admissions for the 2003-04 academic year will be cut by 40 percent in comparison with the 2002-03 academic year.

Vice chancellor of the university, Kwadwo Asenso-Okyere, made the announcement at the inauguration of an international student hostel for the Ghana Medical School in Accra. He stated that inadequate facilities were the reason for the reduced number of enrollments.

The vice chancellor said the University of Ghana has, over the years, experienced a phenomenal increase in student enrollments and that it is very unfortunate that the increase has not been commensurate with an expansion in facilities.

— Ghanaweb
July 7, 2003

Nigeria

Courses at Private Colleges to Be Accredited

The Nigerian government has of late been encouraging the growth of the private sector in higher education. In an effort to upgrade the standards and legitimacy of these institutions, the National Universities Commission will begin the accreditation of their courses of study.

A similar exercise at public universities was carried out in 2001, after which institutions were ranked on the basis of the quality of their programs. Private universities were not included in that round of inspections because their programs were deemed to be too young and not eligible for accreditation.

The recent licensing of ABTI University (see May/June issue WENR) has brought the number of private universities in the country to eight.

— The Nigeria Congress Online
June 2, 2003

Somalia

Much-Needed Medical College Opens in Mogadishu

Somalia’s first medical college since the start of the civil war in 1991 was officially opened in the capital, Mogadishu, on June 15.

The Benadir University Medical College (BUMC) is to be funded by donations from Somali physicians and an annual fee of US$1,500 per student. The institution is currently training 22 medical students who started classes late last year, before its official opening in June.

According to BUMC’s director of training and international cooperation, Dr. Abdirazzaq Ahmed Dalmar, the college has concluded agreements with a number of foreign universities, including King’s College London, University College London, Howard University in Washington D.C., Palermo University in Italy and Lund University in Sweden.

The college hopes to have an initial intake of between 50 and 60 students per year. Students will undergo a six-month period of intensive English-language training and information technology training before starting the five-year course. The language of instruction is English.

— IRIN
June 17, 2003

South Africa

UNISA to Expand its Operations in Africa

The University of South Africa (UNISA) has entered into agreements with three institutions of higher education in Africa, furthering South Africa’s position as a leading educational exporter on the continent.

The new agreements will partner UNISA with the University of Sudan, Mauritius College of the Air and Kigali Institute of Education in Rwanda. The new agreements come on top of already existing partnerships with tertiary institutions in the Seychelles, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Mauritius.

With UNISA soon expected to further expand its distance-education export operations into Africa, South Africa could establish a strong base and dominate the distance-education sector in Africa.

—Business Day
June 27, 2003

Tanzania

University of Agriculture to Introduce 2 New Degree Courses

Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro is introducing two new undergraduate degree programs for the 2003-04 academic year.

The two new programs — bachelor of science in aquaculture and bachelor of science in biotechnology and laboratory science — will bolster the number of degree programs on offer from 13 to 15.

— The East African
June 4, 2003

Uganda

Kyambogo University Approved

Parliament passed a resolution in June to establish Kyambogo University. Earlier this year, the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act was amended to create Kyambogo and Gulu universities, which had to be supported by a parliamentary resolution to legalize their existence.

A motion establishing Gulu University was passed earlier this year (see June/July issue WENR). The creation of Kyambogo University comes as a result of a merger between Uganda Polytechnic Kyambogo, Institute of Teacher Education Kyambogo and Uganda National Institute for Special Education.

— The Monitor
June 29, 2003