University news from Africa

SOUTH AFRICA: Students demand an end to racism / Karen MacGregorThe South African Students Congress - the country's biggest student union - has called for students "to take up arms and fight racism" on campuses, for the sacking of the Minister of Education, a five-year plan to deliver free education and the renaming of Rhodes University because of its "imperialist" associations.


ANGOLA: Plans to regulate university expansion Government plans to open public universities in different regions of Angola should resolve a number of issues in these areas, said Joao Saveia, Vice-rector of the Université Technique d'Angola (Utanga), according to the Angola Press
Agency of Luanda.


UK-MALAWI: Project to reduce medical brain drain / Clemence ManyukweScotland's University of Dundee has launched a pilot project aimed at reducing Africa's medical brain drain, through a partnership with the University of Malawi's college of medicine that will see selected final year students undergoing four-month placements in the southern African country


EGYPT: Medical school enrolments to be slashed / Ashraf KhaledAlthough he came top of his class in this year's secondary school certificate examinations Hassan Abdel Fatah, 19, is unlikely to achieve his dream of attending medical school. An Egyptian court recently upheld a request from the Doctors' Association, an independent union, that the number of new medical students be slashed because of pressure on standards and an over-supply of doctors. In line with the ruling, the number of new enrolments at medical schools will be cut by 14%, from 7,800 to 6,700.



TUNISIA: Higher education must 'professionalise' Tunisian Higher Education Minister Lazhar Bououni has stressed the need to instil an entrepreneurial culture in students and to implement higher education reforms passed in February, reported La Presse of Tunis. The reforms include raising the quality of education, decentralisation and improving management efficiency, as well as strengthening the systems of evaluation and allocating posts.