8 December 2022  Issue No: 386

Despite making notable progress in their quest to become research-oriented institutions over the past seven years, universities allied to the African Research Universities Alliance, or ARUA, largely remain undergraduate universities, in what could be a reflection of the general state of institutions across the continent.

Are sexual relationships with older partners, who are more likely to insist on having sex without the use of condoms, one of the high-risk drivers that promote and encourage the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, among university students across Sub-Saharan Africa?

The Southern African Regional Universities Association Climate Change Steering Group recently endorsed the finalised version of a climate change and sustainable development masters curriculum and digital ecosystem, which SARUA revised and which will be updated in 2023.

No one could have predicted the changes to academe in respect of the internet, tenure and ideology. But they have fundamentally altered academic life, driving the need for a new framework for academe based on what unites academics across geographical and disciplinary borders.

Africa needs to adopt a holistic approach if it is to build a strong culture of youth entrepreneurship and help tackle the current youth unemployment crisis gripping many countries on the continent. Experts agree that universities, governments and the private sector have to be part of this approach.

Young women are often on the receiving end of online violence. As the 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women and Girls comes to an end, two students, who have been victims of this form of gender-based violence, call on universities to do more.

Higher education institutions can actively contribute to the achievement of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals through teaching, research, community engagement, non-academic services and management practices. Zimbabwean universities have to do more to align their work with the SDGs.

It was becoming almost impossible for non-South Africans to join academia amid an ongoing “ring-fencing of the academic space”. To tackle xenophobic practices in universities, strong institutional leadership was needed, it emerged at a round table on academic xenophobia.

As predicted, higher education is trying as fast as possible to return to the old way of looking at internationalisation as a market and income source, ignoring the high social and economic risks of such an approach as well as neglecting ethical concerns.

The higher education sector, like many others, faces an existential challenge to respond to the climate emergency, but by sharing solutions in the spirit of open learning and collaboration – activities at which universities excel – we can lead the way in responding.

The United Nations, human rights groups and alumni of prominent Chinese universities have called on state and university authorities to refrain from cracking down on the students and other protesters involved in last weekend’s peaceful demonstrations against the Chinese government’s prolonged anti-virus measures.