US: Rwanda leader - Africa's higher education challenges

04 May 2008

Rwandan President Kagame said the despite its indisputable role in socio-economic transformation, higher education in Africa was not always accorded the importance it deserves, reports The New Times in Kigali. He was delivering a keynote address at the opening of the Higher Education Summit for Global Development in Washington DC, which was convened by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and aimed at expanding the impact of US and foreign higher education institutions in worldwide social and economic development.

In a speech titled "The challenges of creating a relevant higher education sector for Africa's development", Kagame's outlined obstacles confronting the development of a viable higher education system in Africa. These started with recovery from a tumultuous post-colonial period characterised by conflict, socio-economic instability and poor leadership, which resulted in the destruction of the handful of higher education institutes that existed and the migration of trained African professionals to developed countries.
Full report on the AllAfrica.com site

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