Heads of a laboratory researching food biochemistry and related fields have proposed introducing a masters programme on food security and biotechnology, which does not currently exist in the country. Read more...

By Sharon Dell. After establishing itself as a central player in the South African higher education policy sector in the late 1990s, the Centre for Higher Education Trust or CHET has broadened its horizons, moving into the area of African institutional development with an emphasis on research. Read more...

Research by the Higher Education, Research and Advocacy Network in Africa, or HERANA, has produced data on flagship universities in eight African countries over a 15-year period. One outcome has been to improve data collection at the universities involved. Read more...

By Tonderayi Mukeredzi. A fiscally constrained Zimbabwe government has allocated a meagre US$23.2 million to both kick-start new and complete existing infrastructure projects at its burgeoning universities. Read more...

By Sharon Dell – Africa Editor. In this first edition of 2017, Jens Jungblut argues that South African students should push for both free higher education and matching increases in public spending, or risk incentivising government to take the easy way out and compromise higher education quality.
In Africa Features Wagdy Sawahel interviews higher education experts in North Africa and the Arab world about expected trends for 2017.
In our Africa Special Report on the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa, HERANA, meeting held in Franschhoek near Cape Town from 20-24 November 2016, Karen MacGregor reports on indications that Africa’s flagship universities are showing upward trends in a number of areas. In a blog forming part of the special report, Robert Tijssen and Erika Kraemer-Mbula argue that African science “can and should take the concept of excellence more literally”, while Sharon Dell reports on the challenges of planned institutional reform from a European perspective and provides some impressions of a Festschrift written for Norwegian higher education expert Peter Maassen and launched at the HERANA meeting. Seven university presentations made at the meeting containing comprehensive research-related institutional data are also part of the report.
In Africa News, Tunde Fatunde writes about a string of recent investigations led by a state agency against high-level university administrators and the implications for governing council autonomy, while Tonderayi Mukeredzi reports on the lack of adequate funding to support the Zimbabwean government’s ambitious plans for university sector expansion.
The Global Special Report examines the usefulness and accuracy of global university rankings. Among other articles, Philip G Altbach and Ellen Hazelkorn suggest that rankings are a losing game for most mid-range universities as they are not worth the resources required nor the changes in mission. Ranking experts counter some of the arguments, including Ben Sowter of QS who says criticism should be evidence-based and take the positive and negative into account.
This is the first Africa edition since my editorship became official on 1 January 2017. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my predecessor Karen MacGregor for her exceptional editorial leadership of University World News, and the Africa edition in particular. We wish her well in her new role as director of University World News – Africa. Read more...