How to achieve the Millennium Development Goals through higher education and how to improve the quality of higher education in Africa came under discussion in Dakar this month. Delegates gathered in the Senegalese capital for the Third International Conference on Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Africa, organised by the Unesco Bamako Cluster Office and Unesco's regional bureau for education Africa (Breda).
NIGERIA: Panic grips students in illegal universities Tunde Fatunde
The National Universities Commission of Nigeria recently published a list of 31 'illegal' universities - including offshore campuses of foreign universities - that it has not approved, prompting panic in the affected institutions. Students face a bleak future if their qualifications are not recognised, teachers are no longer sure of their jobs while governing councils fear being prosecuted and have been lobbying key people in the legislative and executive arms of Nigeria's 36 states to have their universities recognised and accredited.
NIGERIA: Clipping the wings of degree mills Peter Okebukola
Nigerian higher education system, which has 297 institutions (universities, polytechnics and colleges of education) and enrols more than 3.5 million students, is the most expansive in Africa. Highly respected in the past, the system is now sadly paled - among other quality-depressing factors by activities of degree mills.
ZIMBABWE: Academics and students doubt power deal Clemence Manyukwe
Academics and students in Zimbabwe have greeted a political power-sharing deal struck earlier this month with caution. Students see little chance of the settlement between long-ruling Zanu-PF party and the rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) succeeding, mainly owing to mistrust of autocratic President Robert Mugabe. But lecturers hope it will deliver academic freedom and a return of donors who cut support as oppression deepened
ZAMBIA: University offers free Aids treatment Clemence Manyukwe
The University of Zambia is offering anti-retroviral treatment to students and staff free of charge to reduce the impact of the HIV-Aids pandemic on the African country's oldest institution of higher learning and the skilled graduates it produces.
SENEGAL: Anti-brain drain computing grid installed
Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Dakar is the first university in sub-Saharan Africa to benefit from installation of a computing grid under the Reversing Brain Drain into Brain Gain for Africa project jointly run by Unesco, Hewlett-Packard and the CNRS, France's national scientific research centre. The new infrastructure will make it easier for researchers at the university to collaborate with colleagues abroad, and give them access to considerable information technology resources.
ANGOLA: Launch of 'knowledge and research' portal
The Ministry of Science and Technology has launched a 'knowledge and research' portal, accessible to the public, on which postgraduate works may be logged, researchers can contact one another, and academic and scientific information will be published.
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