Regional
Sub-Saharan Governance Institute Launched
A new institute aimed at improving and modernizing the governance and management of Sub-Saharan universities was officially inaugurated in Yaoundé, Cameroon in June. The Pan-African Institute of University Governance [1], first announced at last year’s Unesco World Conference on Higher Education, is a joint initiative led by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie [2] (AUF) and the Association of Commonwealth Universities. [3] In addition to Unesco, other partners are the Association of African Universities [4], the African Union and the government of Cameroon.
The institute is located at the University of Yaoundé-2 [5] and will serve all universities in all the English, French and Portuguese speaking countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The institute will set about providing expert assessments, training modules, seminars, workshops and, above all, specific tools for management, analysis and evaluation, according to officials from AUF.
The institute’s areas of activity will concern all senior people responsible for higher education and research governance in Africa: vice-chancellors, rectors, deans, general secretaries and administrators, as well as support organizations and public and state bodies.
– University World News [6]
July 4, 2010
Kenya to Host East African Campus of Pan-African University
Kenya has been selected to host the East African campus of the planned Pan-African University, a specialized institution comprising a network of universities that is being created to develop the continent’s supply of research graduates. The decision was made at a recent Conference of Ministers of Education meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa organized by the 53-member African Union (AU), driving the project. The decision was reportedly quite contentious and drawn out, as many countries were interested in hosting the campus.
East Africa is to establish a regional hub for basic sciences, technology and innovation as well as satellite campuses. The AU is releasing a report detailing where satellite colleges will be based in the region, and these campuses will provide opportunities for other countries. Africa’s four other geographical regions – North, West, Central and Southern Africa – are at a more advanced stage than East Africa in launching Pan-African University hubs and satellite campuses.
West Africa will focus on earth and life sciences, with the hub based at Lagos University [7] in Nigeria. Southern Africa will concentrate on space sciences, based in South Africa, and a Central Africa hub in Cameroon will cover social and human sciences and governance. North Africa will host a hub for water and energy sciences, though the host has not yet been decided.
The AU has said the Pan-African University was born of the need to strengthen higher education in Africa, through a continental network of institutions training graduate students that will contribute to Africa’s development and help to reverse the continent’s under-achievement in science, while also developing key areas identified as drivers of growth. It will also support research, encourage collaboration between scientists within Africa and in the diaspora, and promote greater collaboration between universities and industry. For now, new higher education infrastructure will not be constructed. Rather, existing universities will be used as satellites across the continent. The AU, international partners and host institutions will support the university financially and most funding will be spent on bursaries for students.
– University World News [8]
July 4, 2010
Canada-Africa Einstein Awards for Mathematics
The Canadian government recently awarded C$20 million (US$19.4 million) to help expand a South African postdoctoral training initiative in mathematics, know as the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences [9] (AIMS), to five centers across Africa. The four-year award will be used to help train talented African researchers in mathematical sciences through the AIMS-Next Einstein Initiative [10].
The funding was made available by the Ontario-based Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics [11]‘ new global outreach program. AIMS is a graduate institute in Cape Town, South Africa, founded in 2003 as a partnership project involving six universities – Cambridge [12], Cape Town [13], Oxford [14], Paris Sud XI [15], Stellenbosch [16] and Western Cape [17]. The Next Einstein Initiative has expanded the AIMS concept that would grow it into a network of science and technology centers across Africa. In addition to the center in Cape Town, there also is currently one in Abuja, Nigeria, and by 2015 three more centers are slated for Senegal, Ghana and Ethiopia. By 2020, the goal is to have 15 centers graduating 750 scientists and technologists a year across Africa. Other centers currently under consideration will be Benin, Botswana, Egypt, Madagascar, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
AIMS recruits 60 African graduate students a year and provides intensive training in the mathematical sciences and in problem-solving and computational skills. One goal is to build high-level skills for African initiatives in education, research, and technology.
– PRNews wire [18]
July 7, 2010
Egypt
With Japanese Help, Egypt Inaugurates New Technology University
After six years of collaborative efforts beginning in 2004, a new science and technology university was officially inaugurated in early June. The university is designed to address many of Egypt’s educational and industrial shortcomings and hopefully establish itself as one of the world’s leading universities within a decade. Graduate programs in three of seven engineering facilities began in February on a temporary campus in the newly established city of New Borg El-Arab near the Mediterranean City of Alexandria. Undergraduate courses in areas such as business and culture will be added later.
The officially named Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology [19] (E-JUST) will offer undergraduate and graduate programs in business, culture and engineering, with the Japanese International Cooperative Agency [20](JICA) acting as the main partner on the Japanese side.
In a five-year project running through 2013, the Japanese development agency will provide training for instructors and operational staff in the engineering and education sectors, develop further educational programs and promote university-industry cooperation. Another phase is planned after that.
– JICA news release [21]
May 28, 2010
Ethiopia
Half of all University Lecturers Hold Only a Bachelor Degree
Approximately half of Ethiopia’s public sector university lecturers have only a bachelor degree, according to a new government report. In the last five years there has been a 137 percent increase in student enrollments in higher education, and government institutions enrolled 185,788 students this year.
As student numbers have increased, so has the number of lecturers, which has now reached 17,064 according to a Ministry of Education report presented to parliament in July. But the report said that only 11,238 of them are currently teaching, while others are pursuing further education. Of the active teachers, some 5,700 have only a bachelor degree, while 4,538 lecturers have at most a master’s degree, and 1,004 have a PhD.
– The Capital [22]
July 8, 2010
Ghana
Plans for Open University at ‘Advanced’ Stage
Education officials announced recently that plans for the establishment of an Open University were at an advanced stage. Alex Tettey-Enyo, Minister for Education, Science and Sports, said that the university plans were part of a set of education reforms aimed at strengthening technical and vocational education training in Ghana.
Tettey-Enyo said the government was committed to revamping the technical and vocational sector because the economy depended on colleges and polytechnics for skilled labor. He added that a distance learning university would be the first of its kind in the country, and that it would help to solve infrastructural problems at public universities and enable qualified students to pursue tertiary programs wherever they might be in the country.
– Ghana News Agency [23]
May 20, 2010
Niger
Three-tier System Adopted
Niger’s ministry of higher education announced in May that it would adopt a three-tier structure to higher studies (bachelor, master, doctorate). The structure has already been in place at the University Abdou Moumouni de Niamey [24] since October of last year.
Education officials said that the new system, which follows the Bologna model of reforms in Europe, would help improve access and quality.
– Temoust [25]
May 28, 2010
Togo
Students Protest Bologna-inspired Reforms
Students in the small West African nation of Togo demonstrated against reforms that have restructured higher education there according to the guidelines set out under the European reform movement know as the Bologna Process.
Police intervened in June at the University of Lomé [26]‘s faculty of arts and economic sciences where students were demonstrating against the new higher education system. According to reports from the Republic of Togo, the students claimed the university was not suitably equipped to introduce the system, known in French as LMD (Licence, Master, Doctorat) for the three, five and eight-year degrees on which it is based.
– Republic of Togo [27]
June 11, 2010