Rwandan universities have welcomed a newly signed partnership with the State University of New York, saying it would boost the quality of education and enhance exchange among universities. The expected implementation of the collaboration will start by December this year.

Three African universities that benefit from support from Japan are planning to launch a new research partnership that will also promote Japanese technologies on the continent. The partnership is seen as part of Japan’s new strategy for strengthening ties with Africa through higher education.

A survey of academics and management at universities in South Africa has revealed that, despite the quality of education having improved, there was concern that the capacity of the system, in terms of resources and infrastructure, had not kept pace with its massification.

Repeated efforts to halt the graduation ceremony at the University of Zimbabwe on 15 August have failed amid allegations of academic fraud. A report detailing an erosion of academic standards amid a prolonged lecturers’ strike has deepened public alarm over the goings on at the institution.

Nigeria’s performance in the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination is the lowest in seven years, sparking fears of a further decline in the admission rate of students seeking higher education. Several factors contributed to the poor outcome, experts said.

As students await free higher education in Namibia from 2026, those who are currently owing their institutions money will still have to find a way to graduate. The Student Union of Namibia is therefore calling for a graduation-with-debt policy across tertiary institutions in the country.

A Libyan PhD student succeeded in publishing three scientific papers in high-profile international journals in 2025 on improving the quality of medicines and increasing their bioavailability. Haytham Abuissa's work has been described as “an unprecedented scientific achievement for Libyan universities”.

The first bachelor degree in banking sciences involving all relevant stakeholders in this sector will be introduced at several Egyptian universities at the start of the 2025-26 academic year. The move is aimed at closing the gap between higher education and labour market demands.

Diversity and inclusion in African higher education are viewed as crucial indicators for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on the continent, but high demographic change, culture, ethnicity, gender, religion, migration, social movements, economics, political instability and armed conflicts present barriers.

More women than men in Maghreb countries in North Africa, which include Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, are enrolling in higher education, taking advantage of the high performance levels of girls in pre-university education, according to a new World Bank report.

Africa’s limited control over its own research priorities, publishing platforms, and funding streams has left the continent vulnerable to external influence and intellectual exploitation. To address this imbalance, African universities must be setting their own research agendas, and affirm indigenous knowledge systems.

The announced renaming of Nigeria’s University of Maiduguri to honour the late former president, Muhammadu Buhari, has been met with an outcry from sections of the public and higher education stakeholders who say he did not advance education during his time in office.

African students in the United Kingdom are moving away from the previously popular fields of business-related studies and law, and are increasingly focusing on IT and computing, and courses in health and medicine. Employability and healthcare sector demand may drive the shift, an analysis has found.

African countries are unlikely to attain some of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by the 2030 target date: good health and well-being; gender equality; decent work and economic growth; life below water and the strengthening of global partnerships, according to a United Nations report.

What is the best way for Africa to advance its digital transformation? This crucial question was highlighted at the United Nations General Assembly and again at the 16th ICT for Africa Summit and Conference held in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Higher education has turned out to be a major talking point in Malawi’s upcoming elections scheduled for 16 September following the manifesto launches in the past few weeks of the ruling Malawi Congress Party and the Democratic Progressive Party, the main opposition.

University student leaders have come out in support of former Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga’s call for an intergenerational national dialogue – expected to take place later this month – but they demand that the talks must be youth-led and “free from politics”.

The Libyan Academy for Graduate Studies and several public universities have started to award their first doctoral degrees – the result of a government initiative that established local PhD programmes as part of a broader long-term strategy to strengthen higher education and scientific research in the country.

Students in Botswana are planning a protest on 8 August about an unfulfilled election promise by the new ruling party, the Umbrella for Democratic Change. The party pledged in 2024 to raise allowances for students but has yet to make good on its promise.

Chad will establish three new public universities and a specialised higher institute to expand the higher education system, reduce regional inequalities, and develop its scientific workforce. The institutions will be based in the north, south-west, west and central regions of the country.

Political actors vying to become Cameroon’s next president have pledged to implement reforms to address growing economic concerns in the country, including the surging unemployment of graduates and the need for innovative higher education policies, especially in the science and technology sector.

Plans for a regional university hosted by Eswatini that were first mooted nearly 10 years ago have moved forward at last. The Southern African Development Community secretariat has been tasked to raise an initial investment of just under US$6.5 million for the project.

Morocco’s primary court in Agadir has found a male professor guilty of verbal violence against a female professor and ordered him to pay a fine of about US$5,500 and the court costs. The ruling followed an incident in 2022 involving two professors at Ibn Zohr University.

Strathmore University, in partnership with the Technical University of Kenya, has launched a journal that exclusively captures African ideas through African voices. Writing the Arts & Humanities in Africa is a vehicle for African scholars and academics who want to share their ideas.

African universities and researchers are lagging in competing for the Swiss Frontiers Research Foundation’s international Frontiers Planet Prize – and the opportunity to walk away with three US$1-million prizes for bold, actionable research papers on planetary health, including climate change, every year.

Côte d’Ivoire wants to modernise its technical and vocational education and training, or TVET, programme through changes such as extending bachelor degree courses to also train senior technicians. It is part of a plan to train one million young people by 2030.

The head of South Africa’s representative vice-chancellors’ body has welcomed the appointment of Buti Manamela as the country’s new minister of higher education and training following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s removal of the incumbent Dr Nobuhle Nkabane, who allegedly lied to parliament.

When the Ghana Prisons Service introduced literacy educational programmes at junior and senior high school levels for inmates at the Nsawam Medium Security Prison, little did it know that, one day, it would offer degree courses that would yield first-class graduates.

Zetech University has become the first Kenyan university – and only the second institution on the continent – to receive the African Academy of Sciences’ highest certification for Good Financial Grant Practice. The certification provides funders with information about grants management accountability.

South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya are leading other countries in the growth in research on women’s leadership in African universities, finds a new study which sheds light on women leaders’ contribution in times of disruption and calls for gender-responsive policies in higher education governance.

Nearly two-thirds of university students in Africa experience stress, with Sudanese students the most affected, according to a study that also focuses on some of the measures that higher education institutions can adopt to support students’ mental health and academic performance.

Nigeria’s higher education sector has been undergoing a significant shift as the number of private universities continues to grow rapidly in response to rising demand. Higher education experts have been weighing up the advantages of the expansion against concerns over quality and funding.

Employers considered the accreditation or recognition by a national professional body of an institution of higher learning, as well as its international ranking, as important factors in their decision-making about the employability of the institution’s graduates, a study in South Africa has revealed.

British and Cameroonian scientists have been working across Cameroon, cataloguing a vast range of plant species to help support efforts to protect vital forest areas at the heart of the Congo Basin region. Stakeholders describe this as a significant step towards effective conservation.

To fully benefit from the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in libraries at African universities, researchers have suggested a four-pillar approach that is built on AI literacy, policy initiatives, awareness, and access. However, there is a long list of barriers associated with AI implementation in library services.

The promise of digital entrepreneurship in the form of start-ups, which has been hailed as a solution to the unemployment crisis among graduates from African universities, is not meeting expectations, Dr Tessa Pijnaker, a social anthropologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, has found.

The Addis Convention and the Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education are playing an increasingly critical role in promoting international cooperation, coherence in recognition practices and stronger quality assurance in higher education systems.

Despite significant post-apartheid investment in education, three decades of curriculum reform at school level, and repeated calls for change, the South African science education system remains in crisis. A new book argues that, to achieve the needed classroom transformation, the training of teachers must change.

An Algerian student team designed and successfully launched their Atakor III rocket into the skies over Texas in the United States, reaching an altitude of 11,066 feet (3,373 metres) and, thereby, becoming the only African team to successfully participate in the International Rocket Engineering Competition.

By wiggling their way into the anatomy of a worm native to Africa, a research team based at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, or ICIPE, in Kenya, is finding an answer to one of the planet’s greatest menaces: plastics pollution.

A video that circulated on social media showing a PhD defence session concluding in darkness at the University of Yaoundé I after a power outage has fuelled condemnation from academics over persistent power outages in major cities that host universities and other higher education institutions in Cameroon.

The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has fully digitalised the Student Loan Application System to streamline the processing and disbursement of student loans across institutions. All accredited tertiary institutions have to request access to the application system to verify and upload student data.

Mauritania will establish four new doctoral schools in several universities and higher education institutions to strengthen scientific capacity for sustainable development, Yacoub Ould Amine, the minister of higher education and scientific research, has announced. The country wants to make research and innovation a lever for socio-economic change.

According to Coursera’s 2025 Global Skills Report, South Africa is the most artificial intelligence-advanced country in Africa and 61st in the world. Tunisia, Kenya and Morocco are in positions 68, 78 and 80, respectively. The report covers data collected from 109 countries.

A long-standing practice at Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ogun State, Nigeria, to prevent students from sitting for examinations if they do not wear bras, has caused a stir after the frisking of women was recorded and the video was posted on X.

African universities showed mixed progress in the QS World University Rankings 2026, with strengths in employment outcomes; but struggles in the areas of research, academic reputation and internationalisation have been highlighted if institutions are to keep pace with increasingly competitive global academic systems.

A suspected fake WhatsApp message that has been sent to some of the law students who sat for Nigeria’s bar exam in February – and offers to adjust their results upwards in exchange for hundreds of US dollars – has left several students distressed.

The African Forest Forum has partnered with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the Kenya Forestry Research Institute to better equip young African forest researchers and students in forestry institutions with skills and knowledge to drive green transition and sustainable management.

Kenya is expected to have a revised universities funding model in September 2025 to replace the controversial Higher Education Funding Model that has been the centre of significant legal battles and policy discussions since its introduction in 2023. A ministerial taskforce is working on the model.

African universities are set to benefit from a US$940,000 climate adaptation research project led by the Association of African Universities in partnership with the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the UK’s Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine through its Centre for Capacity Research.

A multidisciplinary team at Stellenbosch University in South Africa is leading a major research project to test whether regenerative farming practices can help future-proof wine production in the face of rising climate and sustainability pressures. The three-year study is known as ReGenWine.

The challenges of higher education in Africa demand concerted efforts and strategic action. This call was made at the 23rd International Conference on Private Higher Education in Africa held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, under the auspices of St Mary’s University and its partners.

Earning a university degree is often considered a sound investment, but obtaining a higher quality degree is even more valuable – a target that has been elusive in many African universities. Also, a disconnect between industry and academia is fuelling unemployment among graduates.

Peer-reviewed local Libyan journals, books and conference proceedings will be included in a new Directory of Online Libyan Electronic Journals in a bid to enhance the quality of scientific publishing in the country and align it with international standards.

The Danish government is launching a new programme worth DKK430 million (US$66 million) aimed at promoting partnerships between Danish and African universities that will see more postgraduate African students receiving funding to come to Denmark for their studies, according to a recent announcement.

Academics, students and unions representing professionals have joined civil society associations from Tunisia, Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria in a convoy that is heading to Gaza to support the Palestinian people amid a worsening humanitarian crisis and what the organisers described as “official and international silence” about it.

Despite black South African doctoral enrolments increasing by 230% between 2005 and 2020 and overall black and white enrolments increasing by 97%, the proportion of doctoral enrolments in the country declined from 77% to 64% due to a lack of funding.

Researchers at Makerere University have connected air pollution to over 7,000 deaths in the Ugandan capital over the past four years. Experts have now turned their attention to measures to help mitigate the consequences of the air pollution in Kampala.

Higher education and labour systems in developing countries, especially in Africa, must urgently adapt to a changing planet by embracing green skills. How education and training systems can accelerate green skills adoption in response to growing ecological and labour-market pressures was the focus of a recent webinar.

The characteristics of the reimagined African university should be to conserve the environment, maintain the ecosystem, encourage social, cultural and biological diversity, create jobs and promote responsible human development. It should also promote the societal common good, academics argue in a new book.

Panellists at a recent webinar organised by the University Social Responsibility Network emphasised the importance of local community involvement and sustained partnerships in the development and execution of community engagement programmes that actually make a difference in the lives of ordinary people.

A deadly flood has torn through Mokwa, a critical transit town in Niger State, Nigeria, and a major road linking the northern and southern parts of the country, affecting thousands of people in the area, including university students. Some cannot return to their campuses.

United States President Donald Trump’s proclamation of a complete and partial travel ban, which will prevent or restrict students and academics from 19 countries across Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America from entering the US, came into effect on 9 June.

The dean of the Epe campus of the department of agricultural science at Lagos State University in Nigeria has been accused of subjecting students to “degrading and inhumane treatment” including hard labour on the department’s farm where they do their practical course work.

Universities in Southern Africa have to be intentional in crafting policies that focus on advancing research that is relevant to regional needs. Some are pioneers, but inaction is enhancing the region’s inability to tackle challenges like climate change, disease management and food insecurity.

As governments across the world scale back investment in research and higher education, the European Union has stepped up its support to Africa, launching a funding package of over €500 million (US$572 million) aimed at strengthening science, technology and innovation partnerships across the continent.

How can emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, molecular diagnostics, integrated sensing for precision agriculture, blockchain, and virtual and augmented reality transform science, innovation and economic systems in Africa?

Morocco has launched a new initiative to support alumni of French higher education institutions that have returned home by opening a special house for them in Casablanca, the country’s commercial hub. The House for Alumni is to strengthen ties between Moroccan graduates from French universities.

African universities must change the structure of PhD training and supervision, produce differentiated graduate training universities, and abandon the single-supervisor design for committee, joint or collaborative models. This was one of the messages at a conference in honour of the African scholar Paul Zeleza.

Unions and associations of Mauritanian students who are studying in Tunisia, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt have embarked on simultaneous sit-ins in front of Mauritanian embassies in various host countries, demanding the disbursement of scholarships that have been delayed by up to six months.

Nigerian public universities recently given permits to generate their own power have ‘a high mountain to climb’. From a financial and technical point of view, experts are not convinced that the universities have the resources to complete the projects unless important structures are put in place.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o died at the age of 87 on 28 May. What do Kenyans think of the giant of African literature and an icon of contemporary decolonisation who suffered political oppression, torture, imprisonment without trial, and eventual exile?

The Mauritius-based Uniciti International Education Hub and the United Kingdom’s Swansea University have approached ministers of health in Africa to support an initiative aimed at strengthening the capabilities of health workers on the continent – and build a pool of world-class talent.

After working for many years to reach the apex of his academic career, well-known agricultural economist Alhassan Jinbaani has passed away only two months before he was due to be awarded his PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

Students at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal, in a protest to express their solidarity with Palestine, have forced Israel’s new ambassador to flee the campus. He was invited to speak at a conference on ‘Practices of International Relations and Agreements between States’.