15 December 2022  Issue No: 387

Africa’s youth has to be at the centre of the region’s clamour for economic transformation. This has been a clarion call from multiple policy and education platforms during 2022, the latest being the high-level Annual General Meeting of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture, or RUFORUM, hosted in Zimbabwe.

Professor Adipala Ekwamu is one of the most influential figures in higher education in Africa, having founded the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture, or RUFORUM, and serving as its executive secretary since 2004. He spoke about his life’s work ahead of his retirement from the position at the end of December.

Suicides among university students, in particular medical students, have raised concerns about a mental health crisis that is tearing through Egyptian higher learning institutions. Universities must invest more in mental health support systems for their students, according to concerned experts.

Universities in Africa struggle to offer the academic background required to contribute effectively to the climate change discourse and activities aimed at addressing climate change, which is why many postgraduate students seek climate change expertise, both in teaching and research contexts, outside the continent.

Quality assurance agencies and networks in Africa have to work in synergy in pursuit of the harmonisation of quality assurance systems, the mutual recognition of qualifications, and enhanced mobility of academics in Africa. Efforts to advance quality assurance awareness and capacity-building activities have picked up steam.

Mentorship for early-career researchers to prevent them from falling prey to fly-by-night journals and conferences, funding support for researchers and enhancing the effectiveness of information sharing about predatory practices within the higher education sector were highlighted as strategies that could help to combat the problem.

Algerian students from the Université Djillali Liabes have successfully invented a revolutionary process in the exploitation of renewable energy at a time when solar power has become one of the much-needed alternatives to fossil fuel-generated electric energy. The technology they developed focuses on the maintenance of solar panels.

Humour in Africa is certainly heavy, moving and defying boundaries and national states and even local cultures, affecting the social and psychological health of the society and illuminating the social and political space in Africa. But why is there a paucity of discourse on humour studies?

Collaboration between two research centres, one in Japan and one in Zambia, is successfully contributing to efforts aimed at early detection of potential pandemics caused by zoonotic pathogens and has also led to significant technical support and human resource development among African researchers.

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.

If we adhere to the idea that universities are sources of truth and knowledge, they need to expand their role and influence in society through greater engagement with the communities they are intended to serve, while also improving their communication with the public.

The return to ‘education as normal’ after COVID-19 should not stop higher education institutions in developing countries from being inventive because harnessing digital technologies can build education systems that are able to withstand unforeseen events and obstacles to progressive education and lifelong learning.

Intergovernmental higher education organisations in Southeast Asia are working to set up a platform to bring together university researchers and policy-makers as part of building a common higher education space for the region that will also help countries achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.