By Sharon Dell – Editor. Two feature stories in this week’s edition tackle the pressing issue of how to nurture the next generation of African scholars. Munyaradzi Makoni and Sharon Dell write about a new book, based on a four-year study covering over 50 African countries, which outlines the barriers limiting career progression among young scientists; and Edwin Naidu highlights a new initiative based at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa which seeks to groom young academics to reach the top of their fields.In news from around the continent, Tonderayi Mukeredzi writes about the launch at a Zimbabwean university of a feminist organisation which plans to expand nationally to tackle sexual harassment and discrimination; Joy Ndovi reports from Malawi on moves by the African Union Committee of Ten Heads of State and Government Championing Education, Science and Technology in Africa to boost member states’ commitment to higher education; and Kudzai Mashininga reports on calls for greater academic mobility at the recent African Universities Day commemorations in Ghana.
In Africa Analysis, Ahmed Essop takes up the debate about the value of rankings for African universities, and Wondwosen Tamrat discusses the challenges facing private higher education institutions in Ethiopia as a result of the country’s existing higher education legal framework.
In our series on Transformative Leadership, published in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, Sharon Dell asks Professor Yusuf Karodia, one of the founders of a pan-African higher education network dedicated to educating the next generation of African leaders, about his views on transformative leadership. And Stephen Coan and Brendan O'Malley outline how the fourth tracking study for the Ford Foundation’s International Fellowships Program shows that scholarship programmes can be effective in promoting social change, in this case in Africa and the Middle East. More...
