Higher education is perpetually in crisis, buffeted by increasing costs and a perceived lack of return on investment, campus culture that is criticized for stifling debate on controversial topics, and a growing sense that the liberal arts are outmoded and irrelevant. Some observers even put higher education on the brink of death. "The New…

From the perspective of peripheralised countries, internationalisation is imbalanced and hegemonic, as it is predominantly constructed by universities in the Global North. We explore the imbalanced internationalisation from the cases of sub-Saharan Africa through the dominance of Western knowledge systems and brain drain; China through isolation…

With eight years to go before the goal of the Education 2030 Agenda are due to be achieved, Africa continent is still facing many different challenges in the education and training sector. Which priorities should we, the Africa Office of the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), as a privileged partner of ministries in charge of…

This report is based on a rapid survey of recently published materials, guidance documents and media commentary. It summarises what is known and understood about the impacts of the prolonged school closures that followed the spread of COVID-19 and the context of school reopening and plans for learning recovery. In March 2020, schools around the…

This report, which has been developed through a partnership between the African Union Commission (AUC) and UNICEF, aims to: (1) track the progress that African nations have made in education, especially in relation to Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) and the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA) goals; (2) identify the challenges…

In the face of increasing social demand and cutbacks in state budgetary support, universities in African countries are now turning towards a multicampus system strategy. As African governments have adopted neoliberal education policies that place premium on entrepreneurialism, profit making, privatization, and markets as drivers of university…

Education, which has been at the heart of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region's history and civilizations for centuries, has a large untapped potential to contribute to human capital, well-being, and wealth. The region has invested heavily in education for decades, but it has not been able to reap the benefits of its investments.…

The term "globalization" does more than represent a set of material (and ideological) processes that have impacts on education and schooling. Additionally, "globalization" operates as a conceptual lens or set of interventions, which is significantly impacting academic discourses in Education and in other disciplines. Not only…

This study examined the social and spill-over benefits as motivating factors to investment in formal education in selected countries in Africa. The paper had three objectives, namely) to profile the key statistics of formal schooling; ii) examine the formal education and iii) link national goals of education with expectations in Ghana, Kenya and…

This paper is a reading of the "Free Primary Education" (FPE) policy in Kenya through the lenses of critical theory/pedagogy. The study critiques the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC) government for adoption of the Freirian banking model to design and implement the policy. The paper argues that such a model has ended up…

This series addresses the relation of education to knowledge-based growth and broader measures of development beyond growth, central features of the modern world in which education has a central role. This role includes the effects of education on pure economic growth including its effects on the creation, adaptation, and dissemination of new…

After years of neglect, there is renewed international interest in higher education in sub-Saharan Africa. Comparative projects have been launched on a continental scale, looking at the socio-economic relevance of higher education, often with the aim of reviving failing institutions. A new "transformation" policy paradigm has replaced a…

This article talks about serious financial problems faced by the African Virtual University, the continent's largest online institution, forcing it to accelerate a major restructuring. The university was established in 1997 by the World Bank as a link between foreign and African institutions, and has been impeded by insufficient funds. As a…

African higher education is currently facing tremendous challenges. The pressure and demand for access is huge. This is understandable against the background of traditionally low participation, low success and throughput rates, declining financial contributions from governments and donors, and critical pressures for efficiency, modernization,…

Decentralization occupies a prominent place on the policy agenda at international level and, within many countries, at national level. It regularly forms part of an overall package of reform of the public service, which has been summarized under the concept of "new public management" (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000). This package also…