In addition to the scholarship and recruitment initiatives the British Council typically carries out, it is also heading up a large-scale, multinational, three-year research project to measure graduate employability in Africa. The project will look at universities in five countries, four in Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya) and also the UK, and analyse how they prepare graduates for work and participation in society.
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How are educators and investors faring in rising Africa?
The project, commissioned by the British Council and led by the Institute of Education at the University of London, is ending its first year.
“What we’ve discovered early on is what we actually don’t know about all the inter-relationships and the triggers for employable or unemployable graduates,” reveals Reilly. “We’re surprised that employability is such a critical issue, and yet there’s so little hard data and rigorous research evidence about it.”
“Technology enables learning to take place outside of traditional educational institutions like never before”
The British Council also promotes social entrepreneurism in countries like Senegal, Sudan and Ghana by collaborating with local businesses to fund “Apprentice” or ”Dragons Den” type television programmes. “They’re promoting the concept of graduate entrepreneurship and the need for higher education institutions to turn out graduates who aren’t job seekers but job creators,” explains Reilly.
Africa online
Not surprisingly, technology’s role in increasing access to education in Africa is elemental as the continent leapfrogs the desktop PC and goes directly to mobile.
”Just as most learning is informal, the most impact is being seen in informal learning,” observes Rebecca Stromeyer, Founder and Director at eLearning Africa. “Technology enables learning to take place outside of traditional educational institutions like never before.”
The lack of infrastructure is generating some creative solutions, such as the White Spaces project, which connects remote universities and schools in Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa and elsewhere to high-speed internet by using unused television frequencies.
And of course, billed as the democratic answer to finally crack barriers to education, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are appearing in a number of experiments to increase access to education in Africa.
Giving South Africa a run for its money, Mauritius has launched a national effort to become the education hub of Africa
The World Bank is partnering with Coursera to pilot the Youth Employment Accelerator Program Initiative in Tanzania that will create a MOOC IT curriculum designed in collaboration with local businesses. The idea is to directly prepare students to meet the high demand for IT specialists in the regional economy.
Meanwhile, France’s minister for higher education, Geneviève Fioraso, committed €12 million to develop the MOOC platform France Université Numérique (FUN) in January of this year, underlining that the initiative will target African students specifically.
In order to fill the gap in quality standards in public provision, African students are increasingly turning to forms of transnational education too. According to the UK’s HE International Unit, last year Africa accounted for more than 20% of total TNE provision globally, led by Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya which provided almost a tenth of students worldwide. Most TNE on the continent takes the form of students receiving degrees from out-of-country providers through local partner institutions.
International branch campuses are another form of TNE that has seen success in the region. Monash University was the first university to establish a campus on the continent, operating in Johannesburg since 2001 and catering to a growing number of international students from other African countries as well as locals.
Giving South Africa a run for its money, Mauritius has launched a national effort to become the education hub of Africa. It hosts several education villages and since 2010, the UK’s Middlesex University has been operating a branch campus there. Currently 720 students are enrolled with about half of the population made up of foreign students, mostly from other African countries.
Regional director Raj Gill says despite the university’s success in Dubai – a campus in another area keen to bring in foreign providers – Mauritius required a completely different approach. “When you’re setting up a campus, if you think you’re going to populate it with international students it doesn’t work,” he says.
“In a small place like Mauritius with already two local campuses and a host of other providers, you have to get a very good match of what is required internationally and what is required locally.”
Preparing for a sustainable future
While economies may be unstable across the continent, for private investors with experience in developing markets or focused specifically on Africa, higher education is the number one choice for investments.
While typically five years ago most investors would have looked only at South Africa, shifts in demographics in countries in East Africa, including Kenya and Ethiopia have created a frenzy among investors. Comparisons have been drawn between Africa and South Korea 70 years ago, based on the continent’s challenge to build education systems from the ground up.
“If you really look at a country that did it right it’s Korea,” says Chris Hoehne, Senior Managing Director at private equity firm Sterling Partners.
“Post-Korean War they started out in the same very tough circumstances and they’ve been committed to a variety of practices, one of them being a really strong commitment toward education that elevated their country to a first world economy and I think that we’re starting to see that practice taking root in Africa.”
But Africa’s commitment to education policy is very much dependent on creating sustainable economies. Upskilling human capital will continue to be of great importance to economic growth, but there must be an equal push to promote entrepreneurship within local industry.
Five years ago most investors would have looked only at South Africa, but shifts in demographics in countries in East Africa have created a frenzy among investors
“Young people in Africa and around the world will need jobs, jobs with security and fair pay so that they can build their lives and prepare for the future,” says Reilly at the British Council. “It hinges on this area of skills and employability,” he urges.
”Organisations like ourselves and the donor community need to ensure that with the expansion in access to higher education in Africa, universities aren’t just producing thousands of unemployed or underemployed graduates that will quickly become disaffected.”
Baur of GIZ also highlights the need to keep manufacturing within African borders. “The whole issue is making sure the production line somehow takes place in the developing country,” she says. “If you only focus on the supply side of labour then you have a lot of people who are employable but you don’t have jobs. If you only focus on the demand side of labour you have jobs but no people to fill them. It’s always very important to see the comprehensive picture.”
Countries on the radar for private investors are ones that have already established track records of growth, which is why South Africa will always be the most appealing place for investors – price points are higher and population is strong.
However, Kenya is also attractive because of the newly established regulatory support for private providers. We can also expect to see strong investor activity in West Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria) and East Africa (Uganda and Tanzania) in the next two to three years.
Stromeyer expects to see an increasing number of e-learning products specifically for African markets that take into account the needs of users living in very diverse circumstances. ”The sustainability of this growth is dependent upon long-term commitment from governments, which must be prepared to support and enable home-grown enterprise, skills development and innovation,” she comments.
“Young people in Africa will need jobs with security and fair pay so that they can build their lives and prepare for the future”
She adds that security and stability are vital for long-term investments in technology. ”Investors, whether African or from further afield, need to have confidence that their interests won’t be affected by economic or political unrest.”
And as more international education leaders push for equality in student mobility, Kalu at Ohio State University believes that education exchanges with Africa present an unchallenged richness of culture, language and ideas for students from the developed world.
“I don’t think any other continent except maybe south Asia offers students that type of opportunity,” he says. ”If you go to Ghana it’s an entirely different set of culture effects from Nigeria, from South Africa, from Ethiopia.”
In order to ensure that Africa’s vastness and progress continues to be a source for opportunities for both native students and countries committed to working with Africa, partnership is essential, says Kalu. “An outsider can never fix Africa. Africa has to be fixed by Africans working collaboratively with outsiders.”
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