Graduate unemployment plays key role in upcoming elections in Ghana

By Sharon Dell – Acting Africa Editor. In our lead story, Brennan Weiss discusses the issue of graduate unemployment in Ghana and the prominent position it has assumed in the build-up to the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held this coming week.
In Africa Analysis, Damtew Teferra says it is important to view the potential disengagement of the United States in Africa following Donald Trump’s election as US president in the context of the growing interest in Africa from other corners of the world, including Germany’s mooted African ‘Marshall Plan’.
In a series on Transformative Leadership in which University World News is partnering with The MasterCard Foundation, Brendan O’Malley interviews the first elected woman President of Mauritius, Ameenah Gurib, who says there has to be a transformation within the African higher education landscape so that universities start to become producers of knowledge that addresses the fundamentals of Africa’s problems.
In Africa Features, Tunde Fatunde highlights debates around the recent licensing of eight new private universities in Nigeria; while Munyaradzi Makoni reports on a recent webinar which explored some of the reasons for the continent’s relatively slow progress in harmonising quality assurance and accreditation processes.
In Global Commentary, Ming Cheng asks Western universities to examine whether international students are indeed gaining the desired international experience at their institutions, based on a case study of Chinese masters students at a British and Australian university; Sarah O’Shea proposes ways that universities in Australia might retain and engage first generation students and particularly those from aboriginal backgrounds; and Emily Johnson shares the views of students across the world arising from an essay contest on the ideal higher education model for their country. Read more...