Compared with other emerging regions like Asia or Latin America, Africa presents a new set of challenges for international educators. Many countries lack the basic infrastructure of roads or grid electricity, stable governments, or sufficient economies to support skilled graduates.

When it comes to establishing foreign partnerships, Western universities “predominantly ignore Africa”, says education consultant Stuart Rennie.

“I think there’s a number of reasons for that – it’s a difficult, challenging and tough environment to work in, so a lot of the VCs and the senior management teams in universities shy away from it.”

“It’s a difficult, challenging and tough environment to work in, so a lot of the VCs and the senior management teams in universities shy away from it”

When it comes to recruitment, traditional channels are also not as straightforward in most African countries, with universities relying on direct enrolments or what Rennie describes are “crude agent networks”.

Bukky Awofisayo, an agent at UKEAS in Nigeria, agrees that the market is “saturated”.

“There are so many agents. There are one man, two man agents, there are big ones, there are international agents,” she says. “Everyone claims to be an agent without offering high quality services,” she adds, noting that accreditation schemes including the British Council’s help set legit operations apart.

Similarly, investors find most countries too remote and don’t have the support infrastructures to make investments and manage operations. As one private sector professional observed: “You really have to go deep into a country to decide whether it’s worth investing in”.

While tertiary enrolments have sky-rocketed since the 1970s in Sub-Saharan African countries, overall enrolments among the tertiary-aged population (18-24 years) remains at just 6%. Meanwhile, the tertiary gross enrolment ratio (GER) of the United States and Western Europe is around 72% and for most developing countries between 20-40%.

According to Abhinav Mital, a partner at strategic education advisory firm The Parthenon Group, a low GER implies a lack of skills to support the economy, which impacts productivity and growth.

“National government policy is needed that empowers the people. Until we do that the middle class isn’t going to last for long”

“Governments understand that but they don’t have the money to invest behind public institutions which have traditionally been the main source of education,” he counsels.

Over the past five to six years, private institutions have successfully filled the capacity gap, creating critical links between education and employability.

However, despite the relative progress that is attracting the interest of the most intrepid international educators, Mital says opportunities are still quite limited “because the markets function very differently and student preferences need to be understood more closely”.

He elaborates, “The way students operate and learn, the mode of study, sensitivity to fees, etc, are actually quite different from what you see in China and India; and students tend to be older.”

While growth in the middle class means more families can pay for quality higher education, there are concerns that without strong local industry these middle classes are in danger of disappearing.

“What is needed is an industrial policy that results in the building of economic infrastructure that will result in jobs for the middle class, which will result in revenues trickling down to the poor people,” explains Kelechi Kalu, Associate Provost for Global Strategies and International Affairs Professor at Ohio State University in the USA.

Ohio State sends students to many African countries to help drive research into product development, medicine, agronomy and engineering. Kalu’s position is that national government policy is needed “that empowers the people. Until we do that the middle class isn’t going to last for long”.

Meanwhile for the vocational education sector, overcoming stereotypes is one of the main challenges to reform, according to Michaela Baur, head of the Competence Centre TVET & Labour Market at the German development agency, GIZ.

“The image of [technical and vocational educationand training] TVET in many countries isn’t great,” she says. “There is a demand for qualified workers but most people would like to see their children more on the academic pathway of education. Mismatch unemployment is therefore quite common.”

Meeting the Challenges

The international community has always been involved in Africa but for the first time, Africa is also in a position to contribute to its own development.

The need for a skilled labour force has resulted in a boon for private and public vocational education providers. Both TVET UK and Germany’s GIZ have set up training programmes appealing to both commercial and aid prospects.

“The way we deal with Africa has got to be different from the way we deal with Europe”

Nigeria is set to become the largest market for TVET UK members and the organisation has recently opened its first international office in Lagos to facilitate partnerships with UK private vocational providers and governments or companies in Africa. These tend to be predominantly in oil & gas and agricultural sectors keen to have more qualified workers, says Matthew Anderson, TVET UK Director.

“The way we deal with Africa has got to be different from the way we deal with Europe,” he says. “They’ve skipped a generation of computers, they don’t all necessarily want to be shopkeepers or businessmen. They’ve got to be trained relevant to the industry they’re in.”

GIZ’s work tends to be less commercial, spending €1 million annually on average on each project with funds from the government. More frequently the projects receive funds from the development cooperations of other countries as well.

Additionally, there are projects financed by third parties, including national or provincial governments in Saudi Arabia or India. Typically programmes receive support over three years but Baur says most need to continue for at least 10 years in order to “make a sustainable change”.

“The idea is to improve or enhance the capacities of the responsible people in the countries,” she comments. ”Local ownership of the project is very important.”