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| November/December 2003 | Volume
16, Issue 6 |
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PRACTICAL
INFORMATION REGIONAL
NEWS FEATURE
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Regional
News
Africa
ANGOLANation Ravaged by War Turns to Education
UNICEF is training 29,000 teachers in three national workshops, the first of which opened in late October. The aim is to cut the number of under-11s who have no basic primary education from 44 percent to just 4 percent. Part of the challenge has been to persuade people at all levels of society of the importance of investing in schools. In the last four years of war, the country spent just 4.7 percent of its GDP on education; in 2002, it spent 7 percent, and the plan was to increase that to 10 percent this year. In a society where 70 percent of the population is under 24 and more than half are children, the program’s success would be deeply felt. —
The Guardian GUINEA-BISSAUNation’s First Public University Opens
Until now, students had relied on scholarships to attend foreign universities, especially in Portugal, Cuba and Eastern Europe. Noting that 80 percent of all Guineans educated abroad stay abroad, the rector of the new Amilcar Cabral University, Tcherno Djalo, said the previous policy has proved a failure. The new school will offer degree courses in education, law, medicine, veterinary medicine, engineering, agronomy economics, social sociology, modern languages and journalism. Students will be required to pay fees of US$26 a month – the equivalent of Guinea-Bissau’s minimum wage. A small, privately run university, the Private University of Colinas de Boe, opened in Bissau in September. —
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks KENYAStrike Shuts Public Universities
A Dec.10 report from The Nation newspaper indicates that the six universities have started preparing for a January reopening despite the continuing lecturers’ strike —
East African Standard Medical College Gains Degree-Awarding Powers
The Japanese government donated US$650,000 in recent years for the construction of a library and resource center at the college. Minister of Education Charity Ngilu said she would support plans to convert the college to a university. —
The Nation NIGERIANUC Enters Exchange Program with 118 U.S. Universities
According to Executive Secretary of NUC Peter Okebukola, all Nigerian universities will participate, although 12 universities have been chosen as pilot sites to receive and send faculty. —
Daily Trust SOUTH AFRICASouth Africa Shuns GATS
His refusal, addressing the Norwegian Council for Higher Education in October, signaled that South Africa is unlikely to bow to international pressure soon, even from the WTO, and allow unlimited access to foreign providers. Norway, the United States, Kenya and New Zealand earlier this year requested, through the WTO, that South Africa provide unlimited access to its providers wishing to operate in the country. Asmal maintained that treating education as a trade service would compromise quality at South Africa’s public institutions and derail the country’s complex tertiary education reform process. He also reiterated his opposition to GATS in education, saying the internationalization of higher education would be better addressed using conventions and agreements outside of a trade policy regime. —
Business Day Ministry Cracks Down on Private Providers
Mediatrek Training Institute and Pinnacle Business College are among six providers whose registrations have been cancelled, effective Dec. 31, for contravening the Higher Education Act. Eight institutions, including the Academy of Learning and Cedar College of Education, have already been deregistered. Among 12 providers granted provisional reaccreditation are Bantori Business College, Birnam Business College and CIDA City Campus. A Council on Higher Education probe into 58 private providers (which have a 65 percent market share) this year lifted the lid on the institutions’ “gross ineptitude and opportunism.” —
Business Day Quality Assurance Guidelines Get Tougher
It seems the drive to curb a proliferation of private providers in South Africa by imposing tough quality assurance standards has resulted in many institutions, operating under international benchmarks, not making the grade. Institutions either have to raise their standards in line with South Africa’s regulations or face losing their registration with the Education Department to legally operate as a quality-assured provider. The council’s system builds on self-evaluation reports and external activities, including audits. Institutions are required to submit an application for registration in full at least 18 months before the start of operations. The rules also provide for criminal prosecution of those misrepresenting information in their applications. In addition, a registered or provisionally accredited provider must submit a sworn declaration it will comply with an evaluation every three years from the date on which the certificate of registration is signed. The new measures come on the heels of new regulations requiring the accreditation or re-accreditation of all MBA programs in the country to safeguard against poor quality providers (see WENR May/June). —
Business Day
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The nation is just resurfacing from a 27-year civil war that is estimated
to have killed 1.5 million people, displaced millions more and separated
approximately 100,000 children from their parents. But now the Angolan
government, 18 months after the end of the civil war, has committed US$40
million to the country’s future by launching a program to get 1
million children under the age of 11 back to school within a year.
