Kenya
New Centralized Admissions Body to Serve Public and Private Institutions
Kenya is launching a new admissions body that will be responsible for placing students in both public and private universities as well as colleges. The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) will replace the Joint Admissions Board, which has over the years faced growing criticism for placing all top students in public universities and leaving the rest for private institutions and tertiary colleges.
It is expected that KUCCPS will more fairly distribute qualified school-leaving candidates in both public and private universities. The new agency has also been given an extended mandate to admit students to colleges. It will also select students for self-sponsored programs – the so-called ‘parallel’ programs for students who are not subsidized by the state and therefore pay full fees.
Education Secretary Professor Jacob Kaimenyi said the new board would help to end growing complaints that thousands of students who fail to attain the required pass mark for university – a C+ in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education – get admitted straight to universities without having to undertake bridging courses as required by law. Recent media reports have claimed that universities have been admitting self-financed students with scores as low as D+, and that this has undermined the quality of learning in higher education.
– University World News [1]
February 20, 2014
Mauritius
Plans for Education Hub Expanded
As the Mauritius government aims to turn the Indian Ocean island into an education hub, the Medine Education Village (MEV) is expanding its facilities to accommodate more international education providers to cater for over 5,000 students, reports The PIE News.
In its push to attract more institutions, Medine has recently set up the Medine Education Cluster within the MEV to act as a facilitator for interested tertiary education operators to set up and operate institutions on the island, which is targeting the regional African market as well as the Asian/Indian market.
In 2012, there were around 1,000 foreign students in the Indian Ocean nation, with Africa providing 47 percent of the students and India providing 22 percent. Other source markets included other Indian Ocean islands and Europe. The island hopes to eventually attract 100,000 foreign students by 2025.
Currently, the largest institutional provider is Vatel International Hotel & Tourism Management Business School [2], with 238 students on its bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in International Hotel Management. Hemsley Fraser, Insead, ESSEC and ESCP Europe also run programs from the site, and SUPINFO International University will start offering both bachelors and master’s degrees this year. Medine has also signed a number of MoUs with foreign institutions that will soon convert into new on-site programs.
– The PIE News [3]
February 11, 2014
Nigeria
In Response to Strikes, Government Increases Higher Education Budget
Nigeria’s government has allocated 10.7 percent of its 2014 budget to education, up from 8.7 percent last year. The recent six-month strike by academics in public universities is seen as the motivating factor for the hike.
The university community has commended the government. It was a previous absence of funds to implement a financing increase that led to industrial action by academics and closure of public universities for six months. Stakeholders are reportedly hopeful that the 15 percent increase in funding will help resurrect the university sector, which has been struggling under huge enrollment increases and stagnant financing for a number of years.
– University World News [4]
February 7, 2014
Nigeria to Host 10 of 15 African Centers of Excellence
The World Bank is funding an initiative to develop a network of African centers of excellence [5], with 13 of 18 centers to be located in Nigeria, according to a recent statement.
The project seeks to promote regional scientific specialization to deliver quality training and research, starting in West and Central Africa. Andreas Blom, the World Bank’s lead economist for African education, met with Nigeria’s National Universities Commission in February to discuss how the total grant of US$73 million to universities in the country would be channeled.
The Africa Centers of Excellence (ACE) project covers seven countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo. The 18 centers, selected from a total of 52 applications from the region, were announced late last year. A proposed phase two of the ACE project would focus on Eastern and Southern Africa, pending country interest and progress on phase one.
Blom said he hopes that the ACE project will build African capacity to solve African problems. He said ACE would tackle development challenges and poverty reduction in West and Central Africa by providing skills identified in sectors such as extractive industries, energy, water, infrastructure, and health and information communication technologies.
– University World News [6]
February 21, 2014
Rwanda
edX and Facebook to Collaborate on Offering Free Education in Rwanda
The nonprofit online-learning organization edX has announced [7] that it will work with Facebook and two other companies to provide free, localized education to students in Rwanda on “affordable” smart phones.
edX, a provider of massive open online courses, will help create a mobile teaching app that is integrated with Facebook and “optimized for a low-bandwidth environment.” As part of the program, called SocialEDU, edX will also work with the Rwandan government to adapt materials for a pilot course.
Anant Agarwal, edX’s president, said in a written statement: “Improving global access to high-quality education has been a key edX goal from Day 1. Nearly half of our two million students come from developing countries, with 10 percent from Africa. In partnering with Facebook on this innovative pilot, we hope to learn how we can take this concept to the world.”
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [8]
February 24, 2014
Tunisia
A Science-Business City and a New ‘World University’
Tunisia is planning to set up a science and business city including a ‘world university’ as part of its efforts to improve access to higher education, stem the brain drain, boost university-industry linkage and fight graduate unemployment.
The initiative was examined by a high commission of large-scale projects on January 17, according to Agence Tunis Afrique Presse [9]. On average, 60,000 new graduates join the labor market every year but the public and private sectors are only able to hire half of them. Unemployment among university graduates was one of the major grievances aired by the protestors that sparked the 2011 Tunisian revolution.
Located in Sfax, the science and business city [10] will focus on helping businesses fund and develop commercial solutions to Tunisia’s developmental challenges while also promoting graduate employment. Within the city, the World University of Tunisia will be created with the aim of producing industry-ready graduates as well as carrying out research in close cooperation with companies.
– University World News [11]
February 7, 2014