Universities in Africa have been tasked to be at the forefront of tackling critical challenges facing the continent through partnership, community engagement with industry and networking with stakeholders.
The universities are also urged to develop an up-to-date curriculum with emerging technologies and entrepreneurial skills.
These were the recommendations from a session on breaking barriers and building bridges: Strategies for Advancing Excellence in African Higher Education, anchored by Nigeria’s Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and the past President of the Association of Africa Universities.
According to Prof. Oloyede, African universities must build bridges that connect them to global communities and leverage the power of partnership to achieve their goals.
He said significant investment in research while engaging a system that rewards excellence and innovation is crucial to breaking barriers hindering excellence.
He acknowledged major challenges of funding, limited access, brain drain, inequality in gender and socio-economic factor, as well as outdated curricula as major challenges hindering the development of universities on the continent.
“Higher education is critical to the socio-economic development of Africa however for us to break barriers and build bridges of hindrances to higher education, we need to build partnerships that would facilitate knowledge and connectivity.“
He called for the development of policies, and programs that promote inclusivity and the need to foster a culture of excellence and recognition that will reward outstanding performance.
Funding &Financing
The AAU Chief pointed to funding as the greatest barrier, saying that despite the efforts of many African countries, Education in Africa has remained underfunded.
“Namibia has confirmed that they are spending 28 per cent of their budget on education, despite this amount dedicated I must say that the budget is still low therefore government, private sectors and philanthropists must find common ground to address this issue of funding.“
He tasked universities with resource management and identification of priority areas saying they should be channelled towards the priority areas such as investment in infrastructure such as laboratories.
“If we manage the little we have there will be confidence from our governments and our collaborators, government support is essential no matter what we do as universities the government must not abdicate its responsibilities in education.“
In a panel discussion chaired by Prof. Emeritus, Peter Okebukola, on funding and financing, the Vice Chancellor of the University of South Africa, Prof. Puleng Lenka Bula, said she gained experience of collaboration to optimise intellectual property and increase resources.
“We learnt how to ensure investment into academic programs of teaching and learning, scholarship and citizenship participation to improve on our funding, we also learnt how to optimize university press as an investment for our institution.“
Acting Vice Chancellor of the International Institute of Management in Namibia, Dr Aquilinus Nashilundo identified common issues across African countries, saying many models are similar.
According to him, “For Namibia, there is a dual funding system of government funding I have learnt other means that are not traditional ones that can bring students into our universities. The universities have the opportunity to generate funds through specialised courses to enhance revenue base also commercialisation of products and services they are offering.“
Director of Africa Initiative Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco, Rashid Serraj, expressed satisfaction with the sessions and the panel discussion saying that they were all outlined to address hindrances to achieving excellence in higher education on the African continent.
“I was quite impressed by the level of interaction, the topics, the sessions, the plenaries and everything were all outstanding.“
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Prof. Emeritus, Olugbemiro Jegede has said Education institutions in Nigeria must be steps ahead of learners and society to be fully integrated into the digital literacy plans of UNESCO and the European Union
Prof. Jegede made this known while speaking on the need for Nigeria to take the lead in digital literacy and the introduction of new digital programs such as digital law and digital hacking in the Nigerian university curriculum.
“UNESCO and the EU have teamed up with the World Economic Forum and they have advised that the world must move forward and have a digital economy so for Nigeria to fit in the country must take the lead in digital literacy on the continent.“
Speaking on the Ejikeme Mmesoma and the Joint Admissions Saga, Olugbemiro stated that few learners of the 21st century do not have the intention of cheating but are rather interested in testing the efficacy of the technology.
According to him, “In Nigeria, we must be ahead of these people we call cheats and to do this we must now study all the aspects that are involved such as hacking, we must learn how it takes place and we must teach people how to hack into hackers.”
He mentioned that the success of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to secure its platforms is because of its high level of manpower in IT knowledge.
“It is not because Jamb has recruited hackers that they were able to solve the recent problems but because they have few people within Jamb that are highly I.T Savey.”
“What we now need to have are degree programs in digital hacking, and digital law for example if the Jamb case goes to the court many of the people who will either defend Jamb or the learner involved they will be people who have done either common law and the rest. So you see why we need a program specialised in digital law just as you have it in Maritime law etc, Nigeria needs to know more on digital matters,“ he added.
