Mapping and Assessment of Innovative Initiatives in Higher Education in Africa Crispus Kiamba University of Nairobi Consultation on Higher Education in Africa Hosted jointly by AAU & the MasterCard Foundation Dakar, Senegal 21st – 22nd November 2016 Task objectives • To identify major initiatives at both country, sub- regional and regional levels that aim at or have created notable impact on quality and relevance of higher education. • To do an in-depth assessment of the initiatives as regards to design, financing arrangements, ownership, governance, and implementation arrangements and potential for scaling up. • To report key gaps the initiatives were designed to address and challenges in the implementation. • To identify levers for success and/or failure, emerging trends in higher education that these initiatives represent and lessons of experience. • To assess opportunities (potential and value add) for the MasterCard Foundation’s engagement in the initiative and/or more broadly in the innovations in higher education space. Approach/Limitations • Source of information: largely literature review • The language question – Many initiatives (e.g., Francophone, Lusophone and Arab-phone) that the author could not access • Limited time – New initiatives not in the circulated document • The assessment question – Project ongoing; This presentation begins the assessment question/discussion. Principal indications of higher education in Africa • Access and equity • Quality, quality assurance and enhancement • Relevance – Relevance to the socioeconomic development needs of the countries: • to graduates in respect of the perceived value or utility of their learning experience. • development of crucial skills for the labour market and employability, • In a globalized world, entrepreneurial and globally competitive skills have increasingly become critical • Competency based learning • Funding/Financing – The institutional system – Research (including research uptake) and – Staff recruiting, training, deployment and retention – Student financing (e.g., scholarships, bursaries, loans, assistantships, etc) • Information and technology – Institutional digitization – Research and education networks (RENs). – Open and distance strategies (virtual institutions, open online courses, e.g., massive online open courses - MOOCs). • Partnerships, collaborations, and networks – Formal collaboration among a group of organizations that address higher education in ways, and at a scale, that a single organization cannot. – Enhances capacity, opportunities, and solidarity with the potential spillover advantages, economies of scale and scope and providing mechanism to share benefits and costs of collective action. • Leveraging regional centers, networks and alliances of excellence – A regional approach is not only a complement to national initiatives, it also has benefits that it brings to higher education, including: • regional public good; promote specialization - makes no sense for each country to invest in training capacity within each specialized area due to high cost; • concentrate the limited quality faculty available; – keep, concentrate, and develop best talent; – knowledge spill-over regionally and share best practice; – demonstration effect - pilot higher education reforms. • Private sector engagement – Leveraging triple/quantruple heritages • Leadership, management and governance, • Harmonization/Integration strategies (Regional, continental, etc) • Investing in science, technology and innovation • Cannot ignore humanities and social sciences • Giving back to society/communities – Volunteerism and community service – Other forms of experiential learning. – Alumni work • Leveraging best practices or practices that work – critical in scaling, replicating and elevating successful strategies. • Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), e.g: – Goal No. 4: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all” and gives three specific targets as follows: • Goal 4.3: “By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university”; • Goal 4.4: “By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship”; • Goal 4.b: “By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, • Goal 4.c: “By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States”. – Goal 9 meant to “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation” requires: • Goal 9.5 “Enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors • Goal 9.b: “Support domestic technology development, research and innovation in developing countries” Complexity of initiatives (+ their analysis) • The mapping of the initiatives are so far organized or categorized in accordance with their country or national, regional and continental scopes (circulated doc) • Their assessment, however, to be organized in accordance with what higher education challenges they are addressing or are designed to address. • But, an initiative may have a multiplicity of intentions/impacts – Most of the initiatives rarely address themselves to one aspect or challenge (e.g., access, equity, quality, excellence, funding, etc) facing higher education. • An initiative will normally be designed to address a number of challenges/issues simultaneously – Challenges closely interrelated, intertwined and their resolution is often synergistic – A simplistic categorization of the initiatives can be misleading/difficult, albeit necessary for analysis of their impact/effectiveness/ innovativeness The Harmonization of African Higher Education 1. African Regional harmonization Initiatives 2. The African/Continental harmonization initiative 1. African Regional Harmonization Initiatives • The Harmonization of Higher Education in East Africa: The Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) and the East African Higher Education and Research Space (EAHERS) Initiative • Higher Education Reform in Francophone Africa: – The Council of the African and Malagasy of Higher Education/Conseil Africain et Malgache pour l’Enseignement Supérieur (CAMES) – The LMD ('Licence-Master-Doctorate) Reform in West African Economic and Monetary Union (LMD-(WAEMU) • Fundamental components of the broader or over-arching socio-economic development and regional integration processes of both the East Africa Community (EAC) and the Francophone Africa. – Pillars of (stepping stone to) the African Higher Education and Research Area The Harmonization of African/Continental Higher Education • The policy of harmonization of the African higher education, launched by African Union as part of its strategic objective of an integrated Africa • This has demanded an implementation of the – continent-wide, regional and national initiatives to help reform and enhance quality in higher education – as well as promote the responses of higher education to the continent’s development needs and objectives by improving the relevance of higher education and the employability of graduates. • A multidimensional and multi-actor process taking place at different system levels that promotes the integration of the Higher Education Space in the region - is intended to be achieved by collaborating across borders, continentally and regionally comprises several related areas/ activities/ projects: • Establishment and Maintenance of Continental Political Commitment to the Process of Harmonization – including the establishment of the Education Division of the African Union • The Addis Convention (former Arusha Convention): Mutual recognition of studies, certificates, diplomas, degrees and other academic qualifications in Africa • African Quality Assurance Mechanism (AQRM) • Pan African University • Pan African Institute of Education For Development (Iped) • The African Quality Assurance Network (AfriQAN) • Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) • Association for Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) The Africa-EU partnership projects in support of harmonization – Europe-Africa Quality Connect: Building Institutional Capacity Through Partnership – Nyerere Scholarship and Academic Mobility Programme: • Basic Nyerere Scholarship Scheme; • Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Scheme. • Intra-ACP Academic Mobility Scheme • Africa India Fellowship Programme – ERASMUS + Programme – Tuning Africa Project – Development of Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Framework (PAQAF) Research, funding, networks, etc The Carnegie led Research and Advocacy Networks Project …..Led to the establishment >>> The Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network (HERENA) • Administered by the the Centre for Higher Education Transformation and (CHET) The African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) • Launched by 15 universities from 8 African countries during the First High Education Summit: Revitalizing Higher Education for Africa’s Future, March 10, 2015 in Dakar, Senegal. • ACU Low Cost Journals Scheme: Protecting the African Library Scheme within Africa – In collaborating with International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) –