9 March 2023  Issue No: 396

Students from Sub-Saharan African countries may abandon their studies in Tunisian universities and colleges in the wake of the mass arrests of compatriots, xenophobic attacks and racial violence. Some embassies have asked their citizens to stay home. Others have started repatriation efforts.

In a country where about 20% of female students have experienced gender-based violence, access to support services after trauma is paramount to help them complete their studies. This is why South Africa’s Nelson Mandela University has launched a chapter of the Alumni-in-Action initiative, first started at the University of Cape Town.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought greater awareness of the benefits of blended tuition in Africa and beyond, the focus is turning away from the technical stability of learning management systems to concerns about how to support people to get the most out of these edtech platforms.

South Africa has announced 17 National Contact Points for the various funding pillars of Horizon Europe, the European Union’s flagship multilateral research programme, the biggest of its kind in the world. The NCPs will support researchers with the expertise to place their scholarship in the international domain.

Stakeholders, including academics, researchers and policy-makers in Tanzania, intend to adopt open science and present the plan to the government and implementation partners for funding. However, the decision to make research more accessible means they also have to deal with several challenges.

A key feature of the academe is the sophistication of its discourse, often marked by coded language, pompous jargon and the use of rituals to remain exclusive. The pressure to ‘publish or perish’ reduces researchers to matrices, resulting in an academe that is detached from the community and reclusive scholars who rehash existing work instead of practically contributing.

The introduction of a carbon footprint score defined by the transparency of a university in its reporting would enable universities to compete with each other not only in respect of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but by increasing the transparency and availability of data.

Students from Sub-Saharan Africa are being recruited in their numbers and the competition for students is increasing, with indicators predicting that the region’s 430,000 outwardly mobile students will double by 2050. Nigerian students, the biggest group of international students, opt for the UK and US, while francophone students choose France.

This is part of a weekly University World News special report series on ‘AI and higher education’. The focus is on how universities are engaging with ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence tools. The articles from academics and our journalists around the world are exploring developments and university work in AI that have implications for higher education institutions and systems, students and staff, and teaching, learning and research.

As university rankings and the dominance of the ‘world-class model’ begin to fade, the time is right for universities to explore other models that offer a holistic approach to their development and embrace a constant search for self-improvement and greater societal impact.

The Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education will come into force on Sunday 5 March, becoming the first legally binding United Nations instrument on higher education, fostering international mobility and opening up increased opportunities for students and qualification holders worldwide.