14 November 2019  Issue No: 254

The launch of a new multidisciplinary academic journal after years of planning and commitment has opened up a valuable and much-needed academic avenue for scholars in science, humanities and social sciences in Namibia.

South African universities are grappling with a number of challenges, many of which are inherently South African in character but are nonetheless important. However, the global environment for research and higher education has changed markedly and it is not clear whether our universities are giving sufficient attention to the broader international contexts in which they are working.

For several weeks up to 300 people from African countries have been camped outside the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Pretoria, South Africa, demanding to be sent home to their countries of origin as they fear for their lives in South Africa following an outbreak of xenophobic violence in August and September that left several people dead.

One of China’s oldest universities, the Beijing Foreign Studies University, announced the introduction last month of a course in Kinyarwanda – one of Rwanda’s four official languages which is spoken by almost all of the native population and 12 million people in Rwanda, Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and adjacent parts of southern Uganda.

When I received my admission to Uganda's Makerere University Business School for my undergraduate degree, a very high note of self-importance emerged because I was convinced my time to conquer the world had arrived.

The 14th edition of eLearning Africa was held from 23 to 25 October in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Under the theme "The Keys to the Future: Learnability and employability", the gathering focused on two of the most important attributes needed in tomorrow’s rapidly changing global economy: learnability and employability.

Putting students into groups to complete an assessment doesn’t necessarily result in collaborative teamwork and productive learning and students often hate it, but might it be the best preparation for the world of work? Academic policy-makers and employers certainly think so.

Universities need to stand firm on, and provide hard evidence of, the benefits of internationalisation, to counter rising neo-nationalist moves to create a climate of fear, reminiscent of the McCarthy era, which is raising harmful suspicions and jeopardising global collaborations, particularly with China, that benefit the whole world.