Network for international office practitioners launched

Those involved in international education in Africa have, for the very first time, launched a network for international office practitioners that can serve as a platform to bring together those working at the coalface.

The network will connect stakeholders from across Africa with each other to share best practices and coordinate higher education internationalisation better, as well as foster internationalisation activities in universities in various countries and regions of Africa.

This emerged from a Special Interest Group of the African Network for Internationalization of Education (ANIE). The new group, the Network for International Office Practitioners Group (NIOP) was launched in Accra, Ghana, during the 14th annual conference of ANIE held from 9-11 October.

Growth in internationalisation in Africa

A concept note for NIOP acknowledges that internationalisation has become a central feature of most tertiary institutions across the world, and the level of internationalisation activities has become a key component of most recognised ranking metrics.

It also notes the tremendous growth of internationalisation activities in Africa, thus the need to build capacity and develop a coordinated and strategic approach to take advantage of its benefits and opportunities while, at the same time, attending to some of its negative outcomes.

“To this end, most universities have established international offices to coordinate their internationalisation activities, including the signing of memorandums of understanding, staff, faculty and students’ exchanges [as well as] research collaborations, among others. Universities in Africa have not been left out in the drive towards internationalisation,” it states.

Linking international offices

It further observes that there is currently no regional body that connects and coordinates international office practitioners across Africa.

NIOP was, therefore, being set up to connect international office practitioners in Africa to learn best practices and build capacity. In addition, the document envisions a deeper South-South collaboration in the field of internationalisation.

According to Professor Samuel Boadi-Kusi, the chairman of the NIOP network and the dean of the Office of International Relations at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, the network will also advocate for the establishment of international offices in institutions that do not yet have them.

He explained that this would be done by engaging with university leaders, policymakers, students and stakeholders in internationalisation.

Uneven capacity

While internationalisation is growing in significance in African higher education institutions, the capacity of institutions to carry out internationalisation is uneven, thereby highlighting the need for professionalising and supporting the international offices, said Dr James Otieno Jowi, ANIE founding executive secretary.

The network will also include the internationalisation practitioners involved in the EU-funded DigiGrad project, which also aims at strengthening the capacities of internationalisation practitioners.

Through the project, he disclosed, capacity-building training sessions have been held for the participating universities and, one of them, the Upper Nile University in South Sudan, has recently established an international office as an outcome from the capacity-building project. International Office practitioners from Africa wishing to join the network can liaise with ANIE, he added.

Besides seeking to share best practices in the internationalisation of universities, NIOP will also be organising seminars, workshops and conferences for practitioners.

In actualising the association, it is envisaged that it will have an interim leadership, preferably with representatives from each regional bloc of Africa to make organisation and planning easier, added Professor Kefa Simwa, the executive director of ANIIE.

The NOIP network will be an important platform, not only for developing and strengthening international offices at universities, but also for working with other partners, said Professor Goski Alabi, chair of the ANIE board.

She said it was “historic” that the organisation was launched during the conference, a fitting platform for the initiative, and a great opportunity that it has been presented to the ANIE network to use in building internationalisation.

Internationalisation, she noted, has a key role to play in transforming Africa’s higher education and research if it is focused on Africa’s priority needs, right from ranking to intercultural competences, “epistemic plurality, social justice in education, the sharing of resources, [and] grooming global citizens to shape Africa’s dwarfed voice in the scholarship of the world”.

It also had the potential to address historical imbalances and promote indigenous knowledge and sustainable development, she added.

“The current framework of internationalisation has been shaped by historical legacies and some of the unintended consequences of globalisation – thus [there is a need for] repositioning,” she said. “How, then, can we reposition internationalisation so that it works, and supports African universities in addressing some of the perennial challenges of access, quality, low capacities for research and also bring about new research and knowledge paradigms?”

There are several opportunities available to Africa to practise internationalisation differently and in much more mutually beneficial ways, such as the unprecedented ability to use technologies, including digitalisation, to overcome some of the barriers that have impeded mobility and cultural exchanges.

In addition, there was a need to deepen intra-Africa collaborations to make internationalisation work, especially with regard to the “distinctive role of South Africa in the development of higher education and research in Africa”, Alabi added.

While congratulating ANIE on the establishment of the network of internationalisation practitioners, Dr Lavern Samuels, the president of the International Education Association of South Africa, or IEASA, noted that this was an important platform for IEASA and ANIE collaborations, and for furthering intra-Africa collaborations.