By Kelli Rogers. A greater focus on hiring local talent, a continued appreciation for higher education and a call for French-speaking professionals in West Africa. Already these trends have informed organizations’ hiring abilities and patterns in global development. But are these perceptions and assessments valid for the coming year too?
In its benchmark “Career Trends in 2015” survey, Devex sought the opinions of recruiters from development consulting firms, international NGOs, international organizations and local NGOs. More...

By Wyndham Hartley. The country’s universities and technical and vocational education and training colleges have been hit by student protests with classes being brought to a halt across the higher education sector. The Tshwane University of Technology, University of Johannesburg and the University of the Witwatersrand have been particularly hard hit.
Central to the protests has been that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme has not provided enough funding for poor students who qualify for funding or bursaries. More...

The University of the Witwatersrand, or Wits University, in Johannesburg is to host technology giant IBM’s second major research, development and innovation laboratory in Africa. The US$62 million investment comes after IBM launched a research centre in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in late 2013 and is the global company’s 12th international research lab. More...

By Eric Fredua-Kwarteng and Francis Ahia. The government of Ghana is planning to convert the country’s polytechnics into technical universities by September 2016. Each of the 10 administrative regions in Ghana has a polytechnic, making a total of 10 polytechnics that derive their legal framework for operation from the Polytechnics Law of 2007 (Act 745), which replaced the Polytechnic Law of 1992 (PNDC Law 321). More...

By Janice McMillan. Living in the age of ‘supercomplexity’ in which the world is increasingly unknowable, disruptive, unequal and disturbing, we are constantly assailed by difficult questions, competing priorities and a multiplicity of choices and options. In South Africa and Africa more broadly, we see this daily in the urgent, complex, heated debates around poverty, inequality, democracy, justice, responsibility and restitution. More...

By Patrício Langa. After 10 years of being split under Armando Guebuza’s two terms as Mozambique’s head of state, under the new President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, higher education has been reunited with science and technology, and technical and professional education, in a newly established ministry. The ministry needs to institutionalise practices and coordinating structures, and to promote a more bottom-up approach with input from universities and other key stakeholders. More...