26 May 2022  Issue No: 361

African education leaders are calling for more action to create increased awareness of the Addis Convention about the recognition of qualifications in higher education, noting that many countries were yet to ratify it nearly three years after it came into force.

The Ethiopian government is planning to create a system of up to 50 elite boarding schools that will initially supply existing universities with well-educated students aged 18 and above but may later stage higher education courses. It intends to build these schools in the next five years.

Egypt has launched its National Climate Change Strategy 2050 that will be implemented by the higher education sector, among others. The aim is to enhance educational programmes, scientific research, technology transfer, knowledge management and more awareness to combat, alleviate and adapt to climate change.

The reported proposal by the Ghanaian government to allocate ‘fixed block grants’ to public universities as part of measures to address fiscal challenges facing the economy raises concerns, and highlights the need to find sustainable methods of financing accessible and affordable higher education.

A session at the UNESCO World Higher Education Conference 2022, held in Barcelona in Spain from 18 to 20 May, heard that Africa had few science repositories, which was a barrier that hindered data-sharing and open science. How can institutions tackle the challenge?

Breaking generational curses is not easy. It comes with battles no one ever prepares you to fight. That is why graduating was my proudest moment, because everything that had worked against me had failed, writes a student who, earlier, became the first in her family to obtain a university degree.

A network of 15 private institutions spread across 10 countries in four regions in North, West, Central and Southern Africa, aims to train an additional 100,000 students over five years – up from its current 61,000. It will rely heavily on collaborative digital intelligence platforms to do so.

The third UNESCO World Higher Education Conference was held in Barcelona in Spain from 18-20 May 2022. The theme was Reinventing Higher Education for a Sustainable Future and the plan was to forge a common roadmap for higher education to 2030. University World News is the exclusive media partner for the conference.

The killing of a female student of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto State by an angry mob of Muslim students for alleged blasphemy has sparked nationwide outrage. The perpetrators recorded the stoning, beating and setting on fire of Deborah Samuel before sharing it on social media.

COVID-19 has forced higher education systems and institutions around the world to try new approaches to internationalisation that go beyond mobility. The challenge is to ensure that any path forward does not further widen inequalities heightened during the pandemic – including in access to internationalisation opportunities.

As parts of Beijing followed Shanghai and dozens of other cities into lockdown under China’s strict zero-COVID policy, student anger over lack of warning by university authorities and harsh measures to prevent student movement have led to protests at universities in the capital, including the elite Tsinghua and Peking.