Regional
US Donors Reaffirm Commitment to African Higher Education
Seven large U.S. donors formed a partnership in 2000 to support universities, institutions and programs in nine countries across the African continent with a 10-year, $350 million commitment, and they announced recently that they will continue that support beyond 2010. The Partnership for Higher Education in Africa [1] is comprised of Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Kresge Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Mellon Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation.
The core belief of the Partnership and its foundations is that stronger African universities will contribute to poverty reduction and socio-economic development in their countries. Its grants have supported universities, institutions and programs directed at improving higher education access, excellence, research and diversity at universities in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
International development agencies identify lack of coordination among donors as a major challenge. The Partnership for Higher Education has managed to overcome these challenges and has been hailed a success story in terms of coordinating jointly identified areas of support.
One of the Partnership’s main objectives is to increase internet bandwidth and access at universities. Other initiatives include building and renovating structures at individual universities, supporting the activities of academic departments, and strengthening national and regional higher education networks. In cooperation with universities in the US, UK and other African countries, the Partnership has helped university leaders to modernize and bolster organizational structures in areas ranging from admissions and registration to fundraising, communications and governmental relations.
– News Release [2]
October 6, 2008
East African Nations Move Toward Standardization of University Curriculums
Three East African nations are working toward harmonizing university curriculums in a bid to promote greater academic mobility and transferability of credentials within the region. Kenyan Commission for Higher Education [3] Secretary, Everett Standa, said the move would allow students to transfer credits between private and public universities in the region. A draft curriculum for selected programs in agriculture, engineering, medicine and basic sciences is complete, reports The Standard.
From December, students in the selected subject areas will be able to transfer course credits from one university to another within the nations of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda under the Credit Accumulation and Transfer System Project. The idea was first discussed last year by Kenya’s Commission of Higher Education, Uganda’s National Council of Higher Education [4] and Tanzania’s Commission for Universities [5]. The ultimate goal is the creation of an East African Higher Education Area. Issues related to quality assurance, affordability, security and relevance are still being ironed out, according to university officials.
– The Standard [6]
October 14, 2008
Cameroon
New University Opens at Temporary Location
A new public university opened in October at a temporary site while construction of its main campus continues. The University of Maroua was created by a presidential decree on August 9 and is located in the city of Maroua in Far North Province. It forms part of an ongoing government policy of university decentralization away from the capital Yaoundé under higher education reforms that began in 1993.
The university will start with 13 academic departments across a wide range of disciplines, an Advanced Teacher’s College (Ecole Normale Superieure), and an Advanced Institute of the Sahel (Institut Superieur du Sahel) involved in teaching and research in the areas of solar energy, wind power, dairy culture and climatology. Enrollment is expected to reach 2,000 in its first year.
Cameroon now has seven public universities. Most of the other universities have been created through the division of the University of Yaoundé – long the country’s only state university – into two institutions and the conversion of its various regional campuses into a group of autonomous universities. The other six public universities are:
- University of Buea: Buea, South West Province
- University of Dschang: Dschang, West Province
- University of Douala: Douala, Littoral Province
- University of Ngaoundere: Ngaoundere, Adamawa Province
- University of Yaoundé I: Yaoundé, Centre Province
- University of Yaoundé II: Soa, Centre Province
In addition, the following private universities are approved to operate in the country:
- Bamenda University of Science and Technology: Bamenda, North West Province
- Catholic University of Central Africa: Yaounde, Centre Province
- Cosendai Adventist University: Nanga Eboko, Centre Province
- Universite d’Etat: Ebolowa, South Province
- Universite des Montagnes (Highlands University): Bangangte, West Province
- Universite de Yaoundé Sud Ndi Samba: Yaoundé, Centre Province
In 2006, the total number of students enrolled in Cameroon’s universities was 108,000. The yearly rate of growth in student enrollment currently stands at 20 percent. A new Catholic university is planned for Bonjongo near Buea in South West Province, while in North West Province, the Cameroon Christian University is set to be operational within two years.
– University World News [7]
October 12, 2008
Nigeria
Taraba University Receives Positive Accreditation Decision
The National Universities Commission [8] (NUC) accredited Taraba State University in October, bringing the number of accredited universities in Nigeria to 94. The university is set to offer programs in agriculture, education, engineering and social sciences.
– The Daily Trust [9]
October 15, 2008
Rwanda
Carnegie Mellon Negotiating Rwanda Campus
With branch campuses around the world, Carnegie Mellon University [10] (CMU) is now in the late stages of negotiating a branch campus for the sub-Saharan region of Africa to be located in Rwanda, reports The New Times. If established, the new campus would join a network of global campuses that include locations in Portugal [11], Greece [12], Australia [13], Japan [14], Singapore [15], and Qatar [16].
Carnegie Mellon Provost Mark Kamlet confirmed The New Times report in Pittsburgh newspapers, saying that the Rwandan government and Carnegie Mellon are exploring the possibility of Carnegie Mellon offering graduate degrees in engineering and information technology in the capital, Kigali.
“We believe that it is possible and we hope sub-Saharan Africa becomes an important and growing region over the next quarter century,” Kamlet told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “It is a part of the world that may be much more important 25 years from now than we think today, and this is a chance for Carnegie Mellon to get in on the ground floor.”
Funding from the Rwandan government is likely to be supplemented by the African Development Bank, if the deal is finalized. Kamlet said the university would like to have a memorandum of understanding with Rwanda by October and a contract in early 2009. Under the proposed arrangement with Rwanda, CMU would provide teachers, library facilities and technical assistance, and link with other institutions and businesses abroad. In return, Rwanda will give the land for the facility and pay for its infrastructure and the costs of sending students to CMU for graduate training.
– The Nation [17]
September 25, 2008
– The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review [18]
September 18, 2008
Tanzania
First of Five German-African Graduate Centers Inaugurated
The German Academic Exchange Service [19] (DAAD) in collaboration with the Universities of Bayreuth [20] (Germany) and Dar es Salaam [21] (Tanzania), inaugurated in September the German-Tanzanian Centre of Excellence for Law in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam. The center for graduate studies in law offers African students the possibility to obtain a master’s degree in law and to go on and enroll in a constitutive PhD program upon graduation.
The center is the first of five centers of excellence to be inaugurated in Africa by DAAD. Within the framework of the Action Africa initiative of the German Federal Foreign Office, four centers similar to the one in Tanzania will be established in the coming months in Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia and South Africa. The centers offer teaching and research opportunities for future leaders in African states and international organizations, covering a range of subject areas.
– ACA [22]
September 2008
Togo
School Year Begins Fee-Free
Togo is the latest in a growing number of African nations that has introduced tuition-free primary education. The government has waived the fees as part of a more than US$80 million investment in its education system.
Parents who had previously covered the tuition costs will be better off by US$3.70 and US$5.10 for each primary-age girl and boy, respectively, in a country where the average monthly income is about US$33, according to the World Bank. The new policy was something of a surprise, coming just five days before the beginning of the new school year on October 6.
Current primary school enrollment rates in the country stand at 78 percent, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Togo. However, girls’ enrollment has always significantly lagged behind boys, reaching at most 35 percent. It is hoped that the removal of tuition fees will significantly improve enrollment numbers among female students. School administrators told the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, that they were concerned about overcrowding and underfunding in the coming years. Government officials have not made public details of how the government will change school operations to make up for the funding gap.
– UN Integrated Regional Information Networks [23]
October 6, 2008
Uganda
Regulator Shutters Two ‘Illegal’ Universities
The National Council for Higher Education [4] has ordered the closure of Luweero University and Central Buganda University (CBU). Uganda’s university regulator also stated that Namasagali and Fairland Universities have until December to improve their facilities or face closure.
Both Luweero and CBU have over 2,000 students studying Business Administration, Social Work and Social Administration as well as Computer Science, according to New Vision.
The university regulator is currently undertaking a nationwide quality review of the country’s universities, which include 15 privately operated ones. Central Buganda University is located 96km west of the capital Kampala in Kinoni-Gomba, and was established as a mission project in February 2000 by Dr. John Veldhuis, a volunteer of the Anglican Church of Canada.
– New Vision [24]
October 7, 2008
Zimbabwe
Academic Year Cancelled, Education System on Verge of Collapse
The government of Zimbabwe announced in October that the current academic year has been cancelled with universities and schools finding it impossible to operate under an economy that is essentially not functioning.
With public funds currently close to non-existent, public universities have launched income-generating projects in a bid to stay alive. This comes on the heels of a recommendation by the government that ‘third stream’ income projects be introduced at all public universities. Legislators of the portfolio committee on education, sport and culture concluded that universities needed to be “innovative and resourceful” in meeting some of their operational costs after realizing that “university education was crumbling at a rate that has never been experienced in the history of this country”.
The report listed numerous examples of the deteriorating state of the nation’s universities. Chinhoyi State University, for example, has only three computers for 3,500 students while at the National University of Science and Technology [25] a library construction project started 10 years ago has yet to reach roof level because funds dried up.
Meanwhile in the school sector, end-of-year examinations were cancelled in most localities, with students largely underprepared and teachers leaving the profession in droves. A survey conducted by Unicef showed that an estimated 40 percent of the country’s teachers were reporting for duty, while only a third of the pupils were attending classes.
“Between a two-month teachers’ strike, limited learning materials, political violence and displacements, Zimbabwe ‘s children have lost a whole year of schooling,” said Unicef Country Representative, Roeland Monasch, adding that “the depletion of teachers in schools, transport and food problems faced by the remaining teachers and lack of resources have left the sector tottering on the brink of collapse.”
In the nursing sector, it has been reported that Zimbabwean nursing colleges have abandoned specialized training for students because of a lack of medical equipment and poor funding. The latest development is likely to have a catastrophic effect on the country’s health delivery system, itself in a desperate state arising from a massive ‘brain drain’ and poor salaries for medical practitioners.
– University World News [26]
October 12, 2008
– Zimbabwe Standard [27]
October 11, 2008