Publication:
African Universities: The Way Forward

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (368.04 KB)
421 downloads
English Text (12.63 KB)
42 downloads
Published
1994-01
ISSN
Date
2012-08-13
Editor(s)
Abstract
This study explores what can be done to overcome the current crisis of quality, relevance and finance in African universities. It catalogues the accomplishments of African universities, identifies current problems, and signals likely solutions. It analyzes pertinent experience in seven key areas where changes are needed: university - state relations, financial diversification, management, governance, relevance, quality preservation, and managing the social demand for higher education. The report also suggests how a process of higher education reform can be initiated, and outlines complementary roles for government, universities and donors in the process.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Saint, William S.. 1994. African Universities: The Way Forward. Africa Region Findings & Good Practice Infobriefs; No. 10. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10023 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Republic of Sierra Leone : Higher and Tertiary Education Sector Policy Note
    (Washington, DC, 2013-07-15) World Bank
    Chapter one provides background and context for these policy notes. It includes information on the history of Higher and Tertiary Education (HTEs), learning structures, the economy, relevant legal frameworks, and the general education sector. Chapter two deals with quality assurance: the structures of administration, legal framework, monitoring Commissions, internal and external quality assurance, policies, accreditation and participants. Chapter three highlights issues of academic Relevance to economic, social and national development. It reviews the Government of Sierra Leone (GOSL) priorities, the labor market, skills and competencies and employment status and opportunities for Higher and Tertiary Education Institution, or HTI graduates. The chapter further explores the supply of programs and courses while identifying gaps in offerings. Recommendations are provided. Chapter Four provides insight into the Cost and Financing of HTIs. The report highlights the financing of institutions, public financing, subventions, scholarships and projected demand for HTE and associated costs. Policy recommendations are provided in each chapter, and summarized here.
  • Publication
    Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics--Regional 2008 : Higher Education and Development
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008) Pleskovic, Boris; Lin, Justin Yifu
    The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) is one of the best-known conferences for the presentation and discussion of new knowledge on development. It is an opportunity for many of the world's finest development thinkers to present their ideas. The papers in this volume were presented at the ABCDE that was held on January 16-17, 2007, in Beijing, China. Each year the topics selected for the conference represent either new areas of concern for future research or areas that the author believes will benefit from a reexamination. The topic of the 2007 conference was 'higher education and development,' which encompassed five themes: higher education and migration, private-public provision of higher education, financing of higher education, technological innovation (linkages between universities and industry), and higher education and labor markets in Asia.
  • Publication
    Legal Frameworks for Tertiary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa : The Quest for Institutional Responsiveness
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009) Saint, William; Lao, Christine; Materu, Peter
    Prospects for future economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa will depend in significant measure on the continent's capacity to cultivate the higher order skills and expertise needed to acquire knowledge and utilize it to advance economic and social development. Recognition of this reality is leading policy makers and politicians across the region to renew their attention to the role that tertiary education can play in undergirding knowledge-based strategies for growth and competitiveness. As this awareness has grown, fuller understanding of the relationship between human capital formation and economic growth, the types of tertiary education policies that can nurture this relationship, and the national-level conditions that shape the possibilities for success in these endeavors has been pursued by the World Bank through a series of analytical studies. This analytical work culminated in 2008 with the completion of the region's flagship report entitled accelerating catch-up: tertiary education for growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. This report examined the human resource implications of more knowledge-intensive strategies for growth in Africa within the context of globalize competition and argued the need for more conscious management of education policies in order to align education sector outputs, especially postsecondary graduates and research, with national strategies for economic growth and poverty alleviation. In doing so, the report issued a clear call for more autonomous, flexible, and responsive institutions of tertiary education capable of adjusting their missions and programs to fast-paced changes in the technologies, economic relations, and trade regimes that can spell the difference between a nation's competitiveness and stagnation within the global economic arena. It also highlighted the critical role of governance arrangements at the level of tertiary education systems as well as individual tertiary institutions in determining capabilities for flexibility and responsiveness that enable timely adaptation to change.
  • Publication
    Rwanda - Education Country Status Report : Toward Quality Enhancement and Achievement of Universal Nine Year Basic Education - An Education System in Transition; A Nation in Transition
    (World Bank, 2011-01-01) World Bank
    The Republic of Rwanda is a relatively small country located in Central Africa with a population of approximately 10 million people, making it one of the more densely populated countries in the world. The current government is taking positive steps to helps the country emerge from its tragic past, and aims to promote reconciliation and unity among all Rwandese and forbids any political activity or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or relation. The government's effort to deliver basic public services to its population, including education, also follow the spirit of inclusiveness and aims to diminish gender, socioeconomic and geographic disparities. Rwanda's development agenda is entering a new phase as it transitions from post-genocide recovery to producing a population that is regionally and globally competitive and economically and socially secure. The education sector plays a significant role in fulfilling the national agenda. This Country Status Report (CSR) takes stock of recent progress and identifies a new generation of challenges facing the education sector, particularly in the context of ongoing decentralization and the government's recent initiative to extend basic education to nine years of schooling.
  • Publication
    China Xinjiang Province Workforce Development : SABER Country Report 2014
    (Washington, DC, 2014) World Bank
    This report presents the findings of the assessment of the workforce development (WfD) system of Xinjiang Province, China, conducted based on the World Bank s Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) WfD analytical framework and tool. The focus is on policies, institutions, and practices in three important functional dimensions of policymaking and implementation strategic framework, system oversight and service delivery.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Regional Poverty and Inequality Update: Latin America and the Caribbean, October 2025
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-23) World Bank
    This brief summarizes recent facts related to poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) using the latest wave of harmonized household surveys from the Socio-Economic Database for LAC (SEDLAC). This brief was produced by the Poverty Global Practice in the LAC Region of the World Bank.
  • Publication
    Antidumping Mechanisms and Safeguards in Peru
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-07) Webb, Richard; Camminati, Josefina; Thorne, Raúl León
    Peru's experience in the application of antidumping and safeguard measures is characterized by a radical change in the philosophy and procedures of trade at the beginning of the 1990s, and by an increasing use of these mechanisms. Trade liberalization was accompanied by the liberalization of foreign currency transactions and of financial and labor markets. Also, the internal revenue administration was modernized, institutions for regulation and competition defense were created, and state enterprises were transferred to private owners or concessionaires. New laws and institutions were created to regulate markets, including INDECOPI, a novel government agency charged with antimonopoly regulation and consumer defense, and which houses the Antidumping and Subsidies Commission. This highly autonomous and technical Commission became the central player in the implementation of WTO rules and procedures for fair trade. Since the reform was launched, a total of 81 trade protection cases have been presented, of which 57 were followed by a dumping investigation. The application of antidumping duties was approved for 29 of the cases investigated. Only two cases of safeguard investigations were recorded, one of which (Chinese textile clothing articles) is still in the negotiation phase. This paper reviews that case experience in detail, concluding that Peru has clearly differentiated between unfair competition and dumping on the one hand, and damage and safeguards on the other, and has applied strict technical criteria to the former and broader political considerations to the latter. Despite recent indications of a partial retreat from those principles, the decade-old reform is expected to last.
  • Publication
    1 World Manga : Passage 1. Poverty - A Ray of Light
    (San Francisco: VIZ Media and World Bank, 2006) Roman, Annette; Ng, Leandro; Wong, Walden
    The first World Manga series offers a premise where the hero must grapple with social problems of a global magnitude that are set in the real world. Fifteen year-old orphan Rei survives by his wits and guts on the mean streets of the world. His fortunes take a strange turn when he meets a trainer wielding some powerful transformational magic who offers to coach him to achieve his dream of becoming the greatest marital artist in the world! But it seems Rei's trainer is more interested in developing his mind, spirit and ugh! Heart than his thrashing, raging, and fighting moves! The stakes get higher when Rei meets a young woman fighting just to survive! Can Rei meets vanquish the specter of poverty? This publication includes some of the following headings: poverty - a ray of light; HIV/AIDS - first love; child soldiers of boys and men; global warming - the lagoon of the vanishing fish; girl's education - life lessons; corruption - broken trust; and interview with the author of the first World Bank Manga (passage one to passage six).
  • Publication
    Thailand Monthly Economic Monitor, October 2025
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-22) World Bank
    Fiscal conditions remained stable, with a modest widening of the deficit to 3.1 percent of GDP. New stimulus measures are expected to support short-term demand without breaching the public debt ceiling. Inflation stayed negative, reflecting lower energy and food prices amid subdued domestic demand. The central bank kept the policy rate unchanged, citing limited policy space. Thailand’s growth momentum has slowed further as manufacturing activity and services weakened as projected. Tourism remained subdued, largely due to fewer Chinese visitors. Goods exports also slowed as earlier front-loaded orders faded, particularly in agriculture and industrial goods. The Thai baht depreciated in early October as the US dollar appreciated and the current account turned negative.