16 January 2020  Issue No: 257

As African institutions seek to lead the research agenda on issues that affect the continent, they need sound research governance infrastructure and competent research managers. A fellowship programme is helping to improve the research management and administration skills of university leaders to enable their institutions to better compete and collaborate internationally, win international research funding and transfer knowledge and technology to their communities.

A new approach to the design of course curricula and pedagogy in order to better prepare students for life after university emphasises ways of thinking rather than subject knowledge.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa has initiated a three-year programme to boost the place of the humanities in African universities, and re-assert the place of the social sciences in the continent’s development against a backdrop of policies that it claims undervalue the humanities and social sciences and even question their relevance.

In an age of e-learning, access to a reliable and stable internet connection remains an ongoing challenge at the University of Rwanda, the country’s only public university, made up of nine campuses and 30,000 students. University World News spoke to a member of management to find out how the university is coping with current demand and how it plans to improve its connectivity in the long term.

We are stuck between two approaches to the effectiveness of internationalisation of higher education – rankings and opposition to all forms of measurement. But what if, by using a mathematical theory, we could understand better what form of internationalisation works best?

A pilot programme in Zambia shows how UNESCO’s global Qualifications Passport can help with assessing the qualifications of refugees and displaced people even when documentation is lacking. Further testing in vastly different contexts is being carried out to establish its full potential worldwide.

Academic experts say universities in Western democracies should review their engagements with universities in China to gauge whether dramatically tightened restrictions and recent Communist Party-imposed reviews of Chinese university charters – aimed at reducing commitments to freedom of thought – are eroding academic freedom standards outside China.