A recently created National Agency for the Regulation of Higher Education is trying to improve the quality of higher education in the African Atlantic archipelago country of São Tomé and Príncipe. The advisory body, set up in 2024, supports efforts to offer relevant, high-quality courses.

A Malian academic, who says he was hounded out of his university job last month following his release from the country’s Kéniéroba Central Prison on 27 March, has spoken out about threats to academic freedom in the country’s higher education institutions and the collapse of the system.

Naa Dedei Botchwey, a former beauty queen, has been creating educational opportunities for young women to obtain tertiary qualifications. She has partnered with other leaders in the community to allow beneficiaries to attend the Regional Maritime University and the Metropolitan University in Ghana.

Spending up to four years in training, only to serve the sick in other countries, appears to have become a defining feature of nursing as a tertiary field of study in Kenya. Graduate unemployment, despite a shortage of health workers, is driving the migration.

China and Africa are deepening collaborations between their universities and they have resolved to increase the number of institutions of higher learning involved in partnerships between the two regions in various fields under the China-Africa Consortium of Universities Exchange Mechanism.

South Africa’s scholarly publishing sector has a new set of standards to navigate technological disruption, unethical practices and declining public trust. The revised Code of Best Practice in Scholarly Journal Publishing, Editing, and Peer Review was recently released by the Academy of Science of South Africa.

Nigeria’s future workforce must be proficient in digital technology, along with leadership capacity to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world, especially as it taps into the potential of its youthful population. This emerged at a training initiative by Professors Without Borders in Lagos.

For more than a century, the University of Pretoria has carried the torch for veterinary education in South Africa. Now, a race is under way to establish South Africa’s second veterinary faculty. In the running are the universities of the Free State and Fort Hare.

Attempts by Nigerian Education Minister Dr Tunji Alausa to raise the bar for admission into tertiary institutions met a brick wall at the annual 2025 policy meeting of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, hosted earlier this month in Abuja. Eventually, a compromise was reached.

Sandile Kubheka first made headlines as South Africa’s youngest medical graduate. Now he is in the spotlight again after recently being named the recipient of the Dr Clarence Mini Titanium Young Achiever Award, one of the most respected honours in the country’s healthcare sector.

Many of Africa’s brightest young quantum physicists are lured by better opportunities at universities abroad. A lack of funding combined with insufficient quantum teachers, heavy teaching workloads, limited faculty posts, and nepotism at some African universities are all contributing to the brain drain.

Africa’s ability to achieve a shift to a green economy hinges on political will, international financing and higher education and research institutions. Through curriculum innovation, climate-focused training and interdisciplinary research, universities can contribute to skilling a new generation of green professionals and policy-makers.

Physicists from universities across Africa want to pool resources and skills to build the continent’s first home-produced quantum computer.
The initiative would allow more African researchers to do vital experimental work, and it represents an opportunity to develop skills in what many view as a strategically important field.

It is only a few weeks to the fourth Intra-African Trade Fair 2025 in Algiers, Algeria, organised by Afreximbank in collaboration with the African Union Commission and the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat. A research and innovation hub was launched earlier to involve academia in the event.

Concerned by low enrolment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields, a biotechnologist launched an initiative two years ago to expose more Kenyan high school students to these subjects and to help them appreciate the role of science in addressing critical challenges facing the country.

South African analytical chemistry researcher Professor Priscilla Baker is one of five recipients of the 2025 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Awards – a fitting homage to a woman who has broken through the glass ceiling in science and higher education.

How do international graduates from African countries make decisions to stay abroad after completion of their studies? Do attitudes and social norms influence return and non-return choices and preferences? A social geography researcher and expert in African student migration to Europe explored the topic.

Access to higher education may be opening up for young people from Lunga Lunga, Kenya, thanks to an initiative of the Technical University of Kenya, the Wajukuu Arts Collective Studio in the capital, Nairobi, and the Berlin University of the Arts, as well as seniors from the German city’s Club of Engineers and Friends.

Research and practice in agriculture are often disconnected while farmers struggle with low yields, climate shock and limited market access. Merely publishing research does not solve problems, and experts agree that involving farmers as partners in research could lead to a favourable outcome for all.

Students across Burkina Faso have been suffering the effects of major delays to courses and examinations within the West African country’s higher education system. Despite efforts by the government to resolve challenges, problems are undermining public confidence in society as a whole.

A desire to be part of a field that not only seeks to treat symptoms, but also aims to understand and solve the root cause of neurological and behavioural disorders, led Dr Duyilemi Chris Ajonijebu to neuroscience. This benefits the entire population.

The fight for environmental conservation is also a fight against poverty and ignorance that can only be won with education and increased awareness of what is at stake. Many universities in Africa are committed to producing young scientists and are advocating for community-driven solutions.

A collaboration between the private sector and a university is equipping women-run start-ups in Kenya with tech innovation, business management training, mentoring and seed funding across various markets and fields. The entrepreneurship approach of the initiative is grounded in research, learning and local context.

In a world where political instability and youth disillusionment are rising, Dr Koki Muli Grignon, the dean of the School of Law at South Eastern Kenya University, is reimagining legal education to tackle the pressing challenges of governance, accountability and democracy.

Dr Ivan Habaasa Akatwijuka knows about poverty and how it can blight a young person’s prospects. As a child, he sold bananas to pay for his schooling. Years later, when funding his PhD, he had to sell five acres of family land with precious eucalyptus trees. Another example is Tayebwa Allen, whose graduation was nothing short of a miracle.

UNESCO data show that fewer than 20% of graduates in STEM fields such as engineering, computing and information technology are women. Sub-Saharan Africa faces a critical shortage of women with digital skills due to under-representation in these fields.

Stellenbosch University in South Africa has adopted a Visual Redress Policy, an attempt at replacing hurtful symbols with new ones that can aid restorative healing at the institution. Honouring the late local scientist Walter Parry with a permanent installation forms part of this process.

Several Sub-Saharan African universities have partnered with global institutions to implement the Sub-Saharan Africa Teacher Leadership for Education for Sustainable Development project. It aims to equip educators and school leaders with knowledge to teach the next generation about the green economy.

Women and girls in Nigeria may marry young because of cultural values, financial hardship, pressures at home and peer influence. When they fall pregnant, those who are university students face enormous pressure – and find institutional support lacking – to balance childcare and their studies.

The upcoming Southern African Regional Universities Association Conference 2025 aims to catalyse transformative change in the region’s higher education landscape, aligning it more closely with sustainable development objectives and regional integration efforts, said Professor Stephen Simukanga, the interim executive director of the association.

Porn addiction is no longer an issue whispered about behind closed doors at Ugandan universities. It is a pressing concern that affects the mental, emotional, social and even spiritual well-being of students across the country and has prompted calls for more awareness campaigns.

Academics and students in Malawi have bemoaned the loss of funding from the now largely dismantled United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, which has ended scholarships and harmed some higher education projects in agriculture, science, technology, engineering and health.

The proliferation of new threats against academic and intellectual freedoms across Africa has emanated from the deepening of neoliberal cultures in society and in higher education institutions. Against this backdrop, there is an urgent need for a drive to safeguard these freedoms across Africa.

Egypt has launched a Young Researchers Academy to nurture young talent and equip them with the skills that are necessary to drive the country’s scientific research and technological advancements. The academy aims to train up to 1,500 researchers from various Egyptian universities and institutes.

In Uganda, half the population is under the age of 18, while unemployment rates are sky high. But the government’s ‘Skilling Uganda’ programme has been shifting the focus to practical skills, revitalising technical and vocational education and training institutions across the country.

Al-Azhar University in Egypt has recently awarded degrees to deceased students. When universities award posthumous degrees, they have to follow institutional guidelines that should capture a balance between compassion and academic standards – and to prevent academic procedures from turning into memorial services, experts have said.

African universities are caught in a colonial and neoliberal trap that they must escape in order to provide “authentic learning” – even though this will likely take decades, says Fikile Vilakazi, the director of the gender equity unit at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

The geosciences are enhancing Africa’s status and strategic geopolitical importance in the just energy transition as the continent’s abundant natural resources attract increasing attention. Universities in Africa are beginning to pay greater attention to studies in this discipline as student numbers are low in some regions.

The challenging task of establishing a new university can be achieved only by communicating a clear purpose for the institution and continuously engaging the staff to ensure their effective participation in pursuit of this, says Professor Thoko Mayekiso, vice-chancellor of the University of Mpumalanga in South Africa.

Funding for mid-career researchers in South African universities is declining, even though scientific progress could be accelerated by allocating adequate financial resources to this category of research cadres. Now, their career development is on the line.

Several Nigerian students who have voiced their dissatisfaction about their universities and political leaders on social media have faced disciplinary action and intimidation – actions that human rights activists believe are undermining freedom of expression in Nigeria. Some have not been able to complete their studies.

On 9 April, the Great Zimbabwe University suspended a student for two semesters for posting “disparaging remarks” against the university management, and allegedly inciting other students on a WhatsApp group. He is part of a growing list of students who have been disciplined for activism.

More conservation scholars and practitioners must be trained urgently to combat the loss of biodiversity in Africa if the Convention on Biological Diversity’s ambitious ‘30x30’ goal is to be met. The aim is to protect 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030.

African researchers are at a high risk of being exploited by the global network of predatory publishers who exploit the increasing pressure on career academics to ‘publish or perish’ to make money for themselves.

The only way to chart a path for Africa’s rise out of poverty over the next 100 years is by adopting a form of development which begins to take seriously humans’ relationship with nature, according to Cameroonian public intellectual Achille Mbembe.

Most of Nigeria’s government-funded university libraries are poorly equipped, leaving students without access to modern books, journals and up-to-date digital resources. Adequate funding, curriculum reform and collaboration between the government, educational institutions and the private sector could help to deal with the problem.

Is silence in the face of global injustice in the best interests of South African universities? That is one of the questions about the role of universities in geopolitics that academics have been engaging with in the latest edition of the South African Journal of Science.

Universities in South Africa should not be neutral in responding to geopolitical conflicts as the country’s history is replete with ideologies of racism, colonialism and apartheid. Instead, they should question the cost of silence, write two scholars in the South African Journal of Science.

A debate has been raging in the South African higher education sector regarding how academics should engage with or respond to global geopolitical conflicts, such as the war in the Middle East, as well as whether universities should issue statements or pass resolutions on pressing matters of a political nature when there is no consensus among staff and students.

The head of the Technological Higher Education Network South Africa, or THENSA, Professor Henk de Jager, has high hopes about changing the gloomy narrative around unemployment in the Southern African Development Community region with the help of the new University-Industry Co-Creation project.

With a policy that allows students to operate businesses on campus and to employ students to run them and funding support to grow these businesses, Nelson Mandela University in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province is driving entrepreneurial development and social innovation.

Universities must abandon old-fashioned ideas about their roles and the kinds of qualifications they offer if they are to meet student needs and serve the public good, says Peter Wells, the head of education at UNESCO’s regional office for Southern Africa.

Were the proliferation of private universities and the aggressive marketisation of courses in public universities in Africa used as an antidote to cool off political radicalism in higher education, or were they prompted by a genuine desire to harness private resources to speed up the growth of university enrolments on the continent?

New academic reflections as part of a discourse about the crisis facing postcolonial African higher education are shedding more light on the role of political, economic and social influences on struggles and strained relations between the African ruling elites and public universities, staff unions and students.

How can barriers be broken and gender equality be accelerated in African universities? Who is responsible for women’s under-representation in leadership roles and harassment in those institutions? Who can be counted on to advocate for gender social justice and safe campuses in African universities?

A leaked memo for grant management staff of the United States government’s National Institutes of Health instructs officers to hold “all [research] awards to entities located in South Africa”. Some experts estimate that as much as 70% of South Africa’s medical research is funded through the National Institutes of Health.

Africa’s development depends on the higher education sector embracing change and producing leaders capable of addressing the complex governance and technological issues that will determine the continent’s future, says Patrick Awuah, the founder of Ghana’s first private university.

When Zvikomborero Mawodza finished her O-levels in Zimbabwe, there was no money for her to go to advanced secondary school, let alone university. But, instead of seeing this as a lost opportunity to attain a degree, Mawodza calls it “a blessing in disguise”.

The free senior high school programme former president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo introduced in 2017 has turned into a curse for Ghana’s tertiary education sector. The programme churns out more graduates than the universities can accommodate and contributes to unemployment.

Abigarl Ndudzo was in secondary school when a new world opened before her eyes – that of micro-organisms she could see only through the lens of a microscope. There and then, science became her passion, and, at the end of 2024, this passion led to an AGNES-Bayer grant.

Angolan higher education institutions and students are opposing the suspension of government recognition of 83 higher education health courses following a 2024 review, which left little time for universities and colleges to resolve identified problems.

For a decade, clinical psychologist Professor Thoko Mayekiso has been at the helm of the University of Mpumalanga, the first tertiary institution established in democratic South Africa. The vice-chancellor speaks about leadership, diversity in higher education as well as the next chapter of her life.