19 May 2022  Issue No: 360

The future and survival of higher education in Africa will depend greatly on how universities across the continent will be able to integrate traditional forms of funding with emerging new sources of income, according to the Accra-based Association of African Universities.

Grant-making data from 15 Sub-Saharan African countries, members of the Science Granting Councils Initiative, showed that only about one-third of research awards went to women and that men often received larger grants than women. This is resulting in “persistent inequalities”, according to a new study.

The latest annual survey of philanthropy in South African higher education shows that third-stream income flow overwhelmingly went to historically advantaged institutions. The bias must be analysed and the challenges this presents to the system should be considered, according to research by Inyathelo, the South African Institute for Advancement.

In the context of university claims to internationalisation, to improve rankings and to position themselves as research institutions, is the administrative myopia that downplays research and publications that fall outside the approved accreditation lists and research ecosystems. Bureaucracy appears to be trumping the expansion of knowledge.

A first for South Africa and Africa is the ability of scientists and postgraduate students to use the Nelson Mandela University’s new in situ microscope specimen holder and electron detector technology. The system allows researchers to work at the same level as leading laboratories internationally.

Moonlighting by lecturers in Nigeria’s higher education sector is commonplace and has, in part, been blamed on a growing private sector, which is in need of teaching staff. But this practice has been called a “systemic” flaw in a system that desperately needs rehabilitation, according to experts.

More than 1,500 participants will gather in Barcelona, Spain, from 18-20 May for the third UNESCO World Higher Education Conference, to chart a renewed vision for higher education in the next decade.

The argument that Europe’s new immigration policy, which includes development cooperation, will result in ‘brain gain’ belies the fact that capacity development programmes are already skewed towards benefiting the Global North – by grooming talent in the South for employment in the North.

Even as markets for international branch campuses become saturated, higher education institutions may see opportunities to leverage increasing investments for the creative arts in Asia and the Middle East and set up international branch campuses focused on catering to new and existing economies.

With increasing reports of senior staff leaving universities to take high-profile positions with commercial organisations, it may be time for universities to give real thought to the ways in which they can attract, recruit and retain the brightest and the best talent.

After years of receiving extra government funding to push selected top universities up international university rankings, three prestigious Chinese universities will no longer participate in overseas rankings. Academics say this could make the rankings landscape less globally representative as Chinese universities pursue their own path.