23 April 2020  Issue No: 266

Africa is still being viewed through a colonial prism with an emphasis on the continent’s vulnerability rather than its capacity to contribute to concerted global efforts to defeat the coronavirus.

Africa’s leading universities are stepping up to the plate, assisting governments through research to contain the pandemic, and finding other channels through which to deliver on their mandates.

African students in India are the subject of racial profiling and are being blamed for spreading the coronavirus. It is so bad that most of them are unable to go out and shop for essential supplies.

A new six-part dialogue series offered by the Alliance for African Partnership or AAP kicks off on 29 April with a discussion on “COVID-19 Pandemic: Responses and lessons learnt from African universities”. The series will be moderated by Professor Paul Zeleza, vice-chancellor of the United States International University-Africa. As a media partner to the series, University World News – Africa will be bringing our readers insightful and analytical reports based on the webinars.

Professor Rhoda Wanyenze was stepping out her office at Uganda’s Makerere University in March when a news item on the television caught her attention: more people had died of the novel coronavirus in China and Italy, and authorities were saying the pandemic was quickly making its way to Africa.

The COVID-19 crisis will serve as a wake-up call to reassess the vulnerabilities of the higher education sector to disruption and the challenges of living in a global and interdependent world and will underline the importance of contingency planning and risk management.

After the coronavirus pandemic is over, higher education teachers should resort to hybrid teaching – combining online and offline or traditional in-class teaching – so that they and their students will become more familiar with online teaching and be better prepared for future emergencies.

Some 40% of potential international students are considering changing their study abroad plans, up from 31% three weeks ago, as more countries introduce tighter lockdowns to tackle the spread and rising death toll from the coronavirus, a new survey by Studyportals shows.