I was in Kenya a couple of weeks ago for the THE Africa Summit on Higher Education. Although I worked a lot in Africa in the 2010s, this was my first trip back since COVID, and wow have things changed. I thought I would remark on four aspects of the trip.
First, I am glad I read Joe Studwell’s How Africa Works—a book that suggests that Africa is getting close to take-off because of its growing population density—before getting there, because Nairobi gave me some very early 80s Asian tiger vibes, especially with respect to new buildings and new roads (the driver who picked me up on arrival refused to believe that Nairobi might have a better airport road than Toronto until I explained that Canadians refused to pay road tolls). I get that Nairobi was probably always more prosperous than the places I mainly used to haunt back in the day (Kampala & Dar Es Salaam), but this city seemed like it was on the verge of the big time. Exciting stuff.
Second, it was fascinating to me to see which African countries and universities were represented both on the agenda and in the audience. Kenya, for instance, did not send its Minister for Higher Education (mainly because the system there is in total turmoil, as faithful Fifteen readers will know), although it did send the equivalent of the Deputy Minister, who gave a lovely speech. So too did the Minister of Higher Education from South Africa, who seems like quite a decent guy. The biggest African delegations by far were the Kenyans, South Africans and Nigerians—which pretty much sums up which anglophone countries are the strongest in higher education terms (the Ethiopians, who are also in the “strong” category, were mostly absent). But there were people from all over— Ghana, Congo, Zambia, Namibia and so on. The continent as a whole, it seems, is interested in working out not just to expand higher education (a major imperative given demographic pressures) but also how to improve it and to push institutions towards a more research-intensive stance.
Third, it was even more fascinating to see who decided to come from outside Africa. There were British universities trying to stake a claim in creating decolonial partnerships with African universities (University of Bristol – from the city which was the home of the British slave trade); Indonesian universities looking for partners in tropical agriculture and medicine; Saudi universities trying to create broad, pan-Global South strategic research partnerships; and, Hungarian universities doing…well, whatever it is Hungarian universities do when they are peripatetically making foreign partnerships. The point is, African higher education is moving and outsiders want in.
One of the reasons for this kind of partnership activity is, I think, the Times Higher Education (THE) itself and its decision to expand rankings beyond the top 500 institutions globally. The result has been to make universities in the next tier (that is, outside North America, Western Europe and the richer bits of Asia) visible to one another. And as a result, what we are seeing is a huge increase in partnership activity between universities that populate the 500 to 1500 spots in the rankings, particularly from certain parts of east-central Europe (especially Poland and Hungary), the MENA region, Turkey, central Asia, and the richer bits of sub-Saharan Africa. They are all looking to partner with one another in the hopes that this can provide them with leverage to improve even more quickly than they already are. On the whole, that’s a good thing.
(It’s possible of course to lament the fact that by adopting these rankings as a definition of quality, they are all allowing THE and similar rankings to create a kind of global monoculture of research universities. But, what’s the counterfactual here? That all these countries would be re-inventing the university using indigenous traditions? Unlikely. What you’re seeing here might be sub-optimal, but it’s probably better than what would be happening in a world without ranking and ranking companies).
Fourth, I found the discourse about higher education among African institutions to be considerably more sophisticated than it was when I worked there ten or so years ago. From thinking about indigenizing knowledge to the nature of applied research, to the approaches to partnership with the private sector, to the provision of online education, the whole continent seems to have advanced enormously over the past decade. That’s very, very promising, especially since Africa is the only part of the world where higher education enrolments are likely to be rising over the next couple of decades. Seeing that change made me very hopeful for the future of global higher education and very glad to have been able to make this meeting.
Erratum: yesterday;s blog incorrectly indicated theat Loyalist College was based in Brockvillle, Ontario when it is, of course, located in Bellevilee. Apologies.
