Regional

A New Approach to Combating Brain Drain

Countries on the African continent lose an estimated 70,000 highly qualified scholars and experts each year mostly to developed countries, according to the World Bank. National initiatives to stem this outflow have largely failed. A new project involving UNESCO, Hewlett Packard and universities in five African countries is looking at a new regional approach, which would involve compensating for the loss of talent by creating websites and networks, collaborative projects and strengthened links between researchers across the continent and in the African Diaspora.

The project, Piloting solutions for reversing brain drain into brain gain for Africa, was initiated by UNESCO, and aims to establish links between researchers who have stayed in their countries and those that have left, connecting scientists to international colleagues, research networks and potential funding organizations.

Five universities in five African countries were selected to participate: Algeria’s Centre de Développement des Energies Renouvelables, Ghana’s College of Engineering at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the University of Nigeria, Senegal’s Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, and Zimbabwe’s Chinhoyi University of Technology.

UNESCO will coordinate the project, and Hewlett Packard will provide equipment. The project was launched following the success of a similar initiative started in 2003 in Southeast Europe, and if successful will be extended to other African countries.

The project aims to tackle the problem by treating it as ‘brain circulation’, which means that participants are not looking for the causes of ‘brain drain’ but rather looking for ways in which both sending and receiving countries can benefit from the globalization of human capital. More information is available at: HP UK Newsroom website.

– UNESCO news release
November 20, 2006

U.S. University Group Seeks to Build Research Capacity in Africa

Officials from research universities met in July to discuss the need to build stronger and more sustained partnerships with African institutions. International partnerships, particularly in Africa but also in China, were the focus of a three-day meeting of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. The research-university group has made increasing the capacity of African institutions to meet the continent’s development needs a major priority and is seeking ways to build collaborations of a decade or more between U.S. and African colleges, in critical fields such as agriculture, health care, and teacher training.

The university group is working with the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is providing US$1-million for 20 grants of $50,000 apiece, to begin planning such partnerships.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
July 16, 2008

Botswana

A New Education Policy Focuses on Quality and Access

Botswana’s parliament recently approved a new tertiary education policy, Towards a knowledge society. The major goals of the new approach to tertiary education are to enhance relevance, ensure quality, maintain diversity of choice and increase access – including more than doubling the number of students enrolling in tertiary education opportunities within 20 years. This will include the creation of new tertiary institutions, among which will be a second public university.

A key objective of the new policy is the attainment of a gross tertiary enrollment ratio (GER) of 17 percent by 2016 and of 25 percent by 2026. Currently the GER – the ratio of 18 to 25-year-olds enrolled in tertiary education – is estimated at 11.4 percent. This is significantly higher than reported in previous years, because of the establishment of private tertiary institutions in Botswana, but is still lower than other small middle-income nations around the world.

– University World News
June 8, 2008

Cameroon

Bologna Reforms Introduced, Received with Confusion

Universities across Cameroon are introducing reforms inspired by ongoing reforms in Europe known commonly as the Bologna Process. But a report in Le Quotidien Mutations reveals that not all students understand the point of the new European-style degree system that has been introduced. The three-tier system – referred to as the BMD (bachelor, master, doctorate) – is modeled on three, five and eight years of higher education, with credits transferable between different institutions.

Students interviewed by the Cameroonian daily during the Université de Yaoundé’s academic and professional information days in May, which focused on the BMD, told the newspaper they were still confused about the system which the university adopted at the start of the current academic year.

“When they explain it, you feel as if you understand it but I don’t yet see how the courses have changed, even in the way they’re given,” said a second year biochemistry student. A fellow student observed: “The same problems with the laboratories that we had last year still haven’t been sorted out.” She hoped the speeches would stop and “they’ll put into practice what they tell us in theory”, which would “help us understand better what they’re saying”.

European countries voted to adopt the Bologna process in 1999, and many other countries throughout the world have since started introducing similar structures. From 2003 a number of francophone African countries began to reform their systems. Countries in North Africa have also been adapting their systems to the Bologna model in recent years.

– Le Quotidien Mutations
May 13, 2008

Nigeria

New Public University Approved in Ondo State

The National Universities Commission approved the establishment of a specialized university in Ondo State in May. The University of Science and Technology, Ondo will be located in the town of Okitipupa. This would bring to 93 the total number of universities in Nigeria, of which 32 are state universities.

The institution would be smaller in size with a maximum of 5,000 students, and would start with three schools including science, information and communication technology and engineering.

– Nigeria Tribune
May 27, 2008

South Africa

R&D Spending Set to Hit Government Goal of 1% GDP

South Africa is nearing its goal of reaching research and development spending of 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of 2008, according to Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena, reports Engineering News. Current spending, which is measured as a percentage of GDP and indicates the competitiveness of an economy, currently stands at 0.9 percent. Private enterprise and industry currently fund about half the nation’s R&D spending.

The Department of Science and Technology received an allocation of R3.7 billion (just under US$0.5 billion) for the 2008-09 financial year for a wide range of science projects and programs. Next year, the department will spend R4.2 billion and in 2010-11 it will spend in the order of R4.5 billion.

Mangena said in a copy of a speech delivered in Cape Town, that his department had set aside an extra R195 million for strengthening the scientific capacity of higher education institutions, in a bid to tackle the critical shortage of human resources in science, engineering and technology.

– Engineering News
May 31, 2008

Zimbabwean Credential Evaluators Needed

Just short of 60 percent of the international credential evaluations done by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) between January 2007 and September 2007 were for skilled Zimbabweans seeking work in South Africa, the authority said in May.

This is just a small percentage of the estimated 3 million Zimbabweans in South Africa, most of whom are in the country illegally and thus undocumented. “A lot of illegal Zimbabweans are teachers, a lot of them are engineers; they also come out of the government side of the laboratories, lab technicians, and a lot of them are medical staff and nurses,” Roy Bennett, national treasurer of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change, told Business Day.

Of the 17,086 evaluations SAQA did between January and September last year, 9,756 (57%) were for Zimbabweans wanting to use their evaluations to get work permits, said Nadia Coetzee, coordinator of the authority’s Centre for the Evaluation of Educational Qualifications.

– Business Day
May 26, 2008

Tanzania

Government preparing for Education System Overhaul

The Tanzanian government has appointed an 11-member team to evaluate the nation’s education system, which is widely accepted as being out of touch with the country’s needs.

The deputy minister for Education and Vocational Training, Ms Mwantumu Mahiza, announced in May that the group of experts had been chosen to collect views from the public on the kind of education system the country should adopt. Ms Mahiza said the team would be expected to present its recommendations by December.

The Tanzania Teachers Union and the Association of Tanzania Employers immediately welcomed the announcement, saying that the review would offer an opportunity to respond to rising concerns about the quality of graduates from local universities and other institutions of higher learning.

– The Citizen
May 30, 2008