Regional

U.S.-Based African Diaspora Receives Funding to Help Reverse African Brain Drain

A new scholar exchange initiative offering 100 fellowships to African-born academics living in North America to work in and forge research partnerships with African universities, has been launched by Carnegie Corporation of New York. The aim is “to turn the continent’s ‘brain drain’ into ‘brain gain.’”

The Carnegie Corporation said in a news release that African-born scholars living in the United States and Canada would be eligible for the short-term fellowships and would “conduct collaborative research in curricula development, co-publish and supervise graduate students.”

“Fellows will engage in educational projects proposed and hosted by faculty at higher education institutions in countries where Carnegie Corporation operates in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

The two-year Carnegie African Diaspora Fellows Program will be managed and administered by the Institute of International Education.

– Institute of International Education
October 2013

Algeria

Plan Launched to Link University Education to Needs of the Economy

Algeria plans to set up innovation centers consisting of mixed research groups from higher education institutions, science and technology centers and the industrial, economic and social sectors, in an effort to boost the role of research in developing a knowledge-based economy, reports University World News.

The new initiative – one of the first steps in implementing a five-year (2013-17) higher education reform plan – was announced in late September. Funding for two years will be provided for innovation centers that will focus on translating university research into products and services.

The aim is for the innovation institutions, which will be spin-offs from universities, to help solve national problems, enhance research capacity and train high-level human resources for Algeria’s higher education sector.

In the World Economic Forum’s 2012-13 Global Competitiveness Report, Algeria was ranked 131 out of 144 countries for the quality of its education system, 144 for university-industry collaboration, 141 for quality of research institutions, 108 for higher education and training, 141 for innovation, 133 for technological readiness, 129 for quality of math and science education and 72 for availability of scientists and engineers.

Recently, Algeria announced plans to establish about 100 new science, technology and innovation centers within universities. The centers will focus on research in areas crucial to national development.

– University World News
October 18, 2013

Cameroon

15 Medical Schools Banned

Cameroon’s National Commission for Training in Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry issued a decision in August to ban 15 medical schools from training doctors. The move has sparked anger with many, but has been welcomed by the country’s medical profession.

The move in August prompted the vice-chancellor of the Catholic University of Bamenda, Michael Suh Niba, to call the decision “unjust and unjustifiable.” He told University World News: “They closed us down, yet they are using our facilities to train doctors for the University of Bamenda. It is unfathomable.”

But the decision has been welcomed by the National Medical Council. Dr George Assam, a council member, said that the “government could have done more and shut them down permanently.”

Only six medical faculties and health science institutes now have authorization to train doctors for the 2013-14 academic year. In the state sector they are the University of Bamenda, the University of Douala, the University of Buea and the University of Yaoundé, and from the private sector the Université des Montagnes in Bangangté and the Higher Institute of Medicine in Nkolondom.

At the time that the decision was made public, none of the private institutions receiving bans had yet graduated any students, although plenty were enrolled. The commission has tried to mitigate the impact of its actions by recommending that unauthorized schools continue training students and issue biomedical and medico-sanitary degrees, instead of medical doctor certificates.

– University World News
November 15, 2013

Ghana

Double Cohort and International Students Overwhelm Universities

Ghana’s public universities are receiving more applications than they have facilities and infrastructure to meet. The boom in enrollments has been exacerbated by an influx of students from neighboring countries and a double cohort leaving school this year, reports University World News.

As a result some qualified candidates have been turned down or made to sit additional selection tests. This year the University of Ghana rejected 39,645 qualified applicants for the 2013-14 academic year. This year there were two groups of students that sat the West African Senior School Certificate Examination due to the shortening of four-year senior high school to three years.

Ghanaian universities have also proven popular with students from neighboring countries – especially Nigeria where frequent strikes have led to student frustration.

“Over the past four months, Nigerian universities have been on strike and students have been forced to stay at home so it is better for some of us to look elsewhere to educate our children,” a Nigerian parent, Folu Agbeniran, told University World News in Accra.

“It is expensive to send your child to universities in Europe because even if you have the money, the visa regime has become very complicated so it is only logical to turn to a neighboring country where everything is working,” he said.

– University World News
November 1, 2013

Nigeria

Lecturer Strike Enters Fourth Month, Universities Remain Closed

Nigeria’s public universities have been closed since early July after a nationwide strike by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), demanding that the government fund agreements aimed at rebuilding the public university system.

According to the ASUU, the government in 2012 committed to additional funding of US$621 million that year for universities, with an annual increase of US$2.5 billion over the following three years (2013-15). The government has since come up with its own funding formula and the promised funds have failed to materialize.

The government has agreed to funding of US$1.3 billion in the 2014 budget, and that the same amount would be included in subsequent budgets in the next three or four years “until the universities are brought to world-class standard.”

The government gave striking lecturers until December 4 to call off their walk out, warning that if they failed to do so the federal government would do all that is needed to ensure that public universities reopened. The statement from the presidency coincided with the decision by the University of Abuja, alongside a number of other universities, to comply with the federal government’s directive to vice-chancellors to re-open.

– This Day
December 2, 2013