Southern African universities association – What next?

By Karen MacGregor. The Southern African Regional Universities Association has completed its first phase, with funding ended and most of its staff gone. But there remains a need to drive regional higher education collaboration, according to Dr John Butler-Adam: “What happens next will require new approaches, nuanced strategising and strong implementation skills.”
“This might seem a great deal to expect,” he wrote in a review of the association, published last month and titled The Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA): Seven years of regional higher education advancement 2006-2012.
“The process has, however, achieved so much thus far that the gains simply cannot be lost. They must be turned into regional higher education systems that will change the lives of the region’s people at a rate not previously imagined.”
Butler-Adam, a geography professor who is currently editor-in-chief of The South African Journal of Science and a consultant to the University of Pretoria, was commissioned by SARUA to review its operations and achievements and their significance for Southern Africa. The origins of SARUA date back to a general conference of the Association of African Universities held in Cape Town in February 2005. Read more...