Urgent need for HE to bridge digital divide and share resources

COVID-19 has thrown into stark relief the imperatives to bridge the digital divide and to share resources across Africa. Higher education has a key role to play in advancing both of those goals, including by teaching digital skills and collaborating in postgraduate training and research, according to the World Bank and African Development Bank.

An example of the potential of regional collaboration was given. The World Bank-supported African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases at Redeemer’s University managed within three days of COVID-19 arriving in Nigeria, to produce Africa’s first sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 – signalling Africa’s growing contribution to global science.

Leaders at the banks spoke in the last of six webinars hosted by the Alliance for African Partnership or AAP, a consortium of 11 universities in Africa and Michigan State University in the United States. University World News is the media partner. “Dialogue #6 - COVID-19 Impact in Africa: Opportunities for partnership and engagement” was held on 8 July 2020.

According to the AAP, through the dialogue series it became clear that African universities had responded to the pandemic with many innovations to solve local problems. “There was recognition of the need to strengthen both local and regional collaborations, while leveraging the existing, strong international collaborations that many institutions have.”

Investment in higher education

Himdat Iqbal Bayusuf, task team leader for the Africa Centers of Excellence initiative in the World Bank Group, said the massification of higher education was continuing apace, growing at an average 9% annually. Participation rates remain low compared to globally, “but the potential is very high”.

She said the World Bank’s current portfolio within the Africa region is around US$5 billion, of which approximately 20% is within higher education. “This is quite high, given that the sub-region has about 50% of overall global investments within higher education.”

“A large part of this investment is within regional higher education programmes where we have cross-country projects that support regional specialisation, given the scarce resources and need for economies of scale within higher education.”

The World Bank also supports analytical work on issues such as student financing, accreditation, transition from basic to higher education, and equity and labour linkages challenges. The higher education programme is in addition to national country programmes.

The Bank’s ‘Three Rs’ approach to higher education in Africa during COVID-19 focuses on relief, recovery and resilience. It includes providing needs assessments in higher education, promoting zero-rated internet access for students, quick remote learning and building university capacities to train people with critically needed skills.

During four months of pandemic lockdowns, the Bank has done a lot of work in basic and secondary education, looking at how to assist countries to ensure continued learning for students – “so that we don’t lose them during the months they are out of school” – to prepare for a return to school, and to support continued distance learning.

To support recovery, the Bank has worked to help ensure students can return to university, to connect students to labour markets in a crisis context, and to ensure that universities are well funded. For longer term resilience there has been a focus on digital skills, building public-private partnerships to support tertiary education, improving connectivity and data collection.

Remote teaching and learning

“COVID-19 is going to be a key part of transitioning institutions towards virtual learning,” Bayusuf told the webinar. One of the important issues arising from the pandemic is the huge need – and major challenges – around remote teaching and learning in Africa.

While mobile phone penetration in Africa is very good, including with internet connectivity, there is little accessibility to fixed broadband. “This is an important challenge if we are going to do teaching and learning through the virtual mechanism.”

The closure of universities during COVID-19 slowed down research and threw up challenges around online teaching and learning, admissions, examinations and graduations. The pandemic also hit private universities hard, damaging their sustainability and potential.

But the pandemic’s key long term impact is likely to be the switch to more online education – as a way of supporting the massification of higher education, improving access while ensuring quality of online learning, said Bayusuf.

“Higher education needs to actively support the transition to digital skills and the digital economy.” Within education, from basic to higher, teachers will need greater digital literacy and universities will play an important role in developing those skills.

Africa Centers of Excellence

The Africa Centers of Excellence programme, which kicked off in 2014, is the World Bank’s flagship higher education project in Africa. A first phase provided US$165 million to support the creation of 22 centres of excellence in eight countries in West and Central Africa. The second phase, ACE II, provided US$148 million to establish 24 centres in eight countries in East and Southern Africa.

The aim of the centres is to boost Africa’s high-level skills through postgraduate training and to conduct research, fundamental and applied. A wide range of fields is covered, from health to agriculture, and from oil and gas to statistics and infectious diseases.

The centres are hosted by universities, with academics and students drawn from across the continent. Governments must also fund the centres, to encourage their sustainability. Funding is based on performance, to ensure training and research excellence.

“This is an exciting programme because it has a bottom-up approach, where universities submit proposals in areas they want to focus on,” said Bayusuf. “This is a key change – funding comes to African institutions which identify and propose key issues to address in their countries.”

During COVID-19, centres of excellence have supported technological innovation, for instance in printing of PPE equipment. ACE centres were able to help universities make a big switch to virtual learning. There has also been assistance for training in using technology for online teaching and learning.

“It is key to show that African universities are leading within countries and are a huge resource for countries to be able to respond adequately.” There are very many opportunities for partnership around the ACE centres, Bayusuf said, that would be well worth pursuing.

African Development Bank

The work of the African Development Bank or AfDB is informed by a 10-year strategy with two core objectives – driving inclusive growth, and driving a transition to green growth. There is also a focus on structuring investments in order to build resilience.

So said Dr Kevin Chika Urama, senior director of the African Development Institute – the capacity development arm of the AfDB Group.

“With COVID-19 we are seeing dwindling fiscal capacity on the continent, so management of public finances becomes crucial along with public administration.” There also needs to be considerably more capacity for macro-economic policy management, and for accountable and transparent management and monitoring of public service delivery.

Higher education’s role in developing human resources is crucial in this regard, and the AfDB engages in key programmes to strengthen African-led institutions – universities as well as research institutions, think tanks, ministries and agencies across the continent.

“As we talk about digital learning, let us not forget the digital divide,” Urama warned. Even in Africa’s most advanced countries there is limited access to broadband and digital facilities for the young people who are supposed to be benefiting from online learning. A lot more focus should be given to bridging the digital divide, to ensure that no young African is left behind.

He called on universities to expend more effort on strengthening partnerships, internationally and also nationally and regionally. “Universities need to learn to share resources,” Urama stressed, including faculty, equipment and laboratories, to grow the scale of their impacts.

Universities also need to develop more partnerships with the private sector, to build curricula that produce graduates who are of sufficient value to interest companies in investing more in building capacity in African higher education.