1^st Conference on African Education and Research Networking, Tunis, Tunisia, 14^th – 15^th November 2005

Under its Strategic Plan (2003-10), the AAU is establishing a role as coordinator of the many ICT initiatives currently underway. This follows a very strong mandate issued by the 11th General Conference of the Association held in Cape Town, South Africa, in February 2005. The AAU with sponsorship from the World Bank, the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) organized an important conference in Tunisia 14th –15th November, 2005 aimed at:

• Clearly defining its own interface and apex role in this initiative and that of other partners,
• Setting up basis for its roadmap, discussing it with its partners and having a shared vision on the concrete implementation of the bandwidth initiative,
• Sharing experiences with existing NRENs (national research and education networks), similar initiatives available on other continents,
• Making recommendations for action plan.

The  two-day conference brought together more than 100 participants with expertise in the field of information and communication technologies, higher education, and/or  international cooperation.

The opening session provided an opportunity for the Secretary-General of the AAU to remind participants of the leadership role the Association is expected to play in serving not only its members but also other African universities and research centres. The Mozambican Minister of Science and Technology, Mr. Venancio Massingue, in his speech underlined the need for African universities to acquire all information and communication technology tools for research. 

The presentation of the AAU roadmap, undoubtedly one of the key elements of the conference, raised some issues for the AAU to address. These included:

• Awareness-raising and stimulation/facilitation of action at institutional, national, regional and international levels, including development partners.
• Ensuring inclusiveness – “that none be left too far behind”
• Providing a clearing house of information and contacts on players, good practice and success stories
• Undertaking advocacy/lobbying for general and particular interests, appropriate policies.

In the end, there was unanimous agreement that the AAU, given its neutrality and relevance, but also its mandate and the trust it enjoys from its members and other stakeholders, was the most appropriate body to facilitate action and nurture structures at all four levels – the institutional, the national, the sub-regional and the continental. It was recognised that, to discharge the functions effectively, the Association needed additional specialised capacity.

These recommendations were forwarded to the WSIS.

For more information, please contact the AAU Secretariat: info@aau.org                                                       [Menu]

Capacity Building For Strengthening Institutional Capacity for African Higher Education Institutions

An AAU-ACBF Collaboration (2005-2008)

At its 11^th General Conference held in February 2005, in Cape Town, South Africa, the Association of African Universities (AAU) organised a meeting of “The Friends of the AAU” to brief the Association’s donors and partners on activities undertaken to revitalise the Association, as well as the strategic principle that guided the development of the new Core Programme (2005 – 2009), namely, the definition, identification and concentration on AAU’s niche for value addition, coordination, networking and dissemination of new ideas. In addition, the enhancement of partnerships with NEPAD and sister institutions, regional and international organisations and governments was noted. Several participants pledged support, and speaking on behalf of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), Dr. Jacques Katuala, Program Team Leader, expressed his organisation’s interest in working closely with the AAU. He identified capacity building through leadership and management development, ICT curriculum development, improving access to African scholarship and the developing a database of African experts as areas in which the ACBF was prepared to provide support to the AAU in the implementation of the Core Programme.

AAU Welcomes New Officers

Professor John P. Ssebuwufu, former Vice Chancellor of Makerere University, Uganda, is the newly appointed Association’s new Director of Research and Programmes.

Professor Ssebuwufu joined the AAU on 8th November, 2005 with extensive experience in management and strategic planning, programme development, fundraising and funds management among other competencies. He replaces Professor Paschal Mihyo who resigned in October 2005 owing to ill health.

As Director of Research and Programmes, Professor Ssebuwufu is responsible for the management of all the Association’s programmes. He may be reached at: pjmsseb@aau.org .

Prof. Olusola Oyewole assumed duty at the AAU Secretariat on January 16, 2006 and will be responsible for the administration of specific programmes and projects, the development of new programmes and services, including proposals for funding to donor organisation, as well as the preparation and management of programme budgets and narrative reports. He may be reached at: oyewole@aau.org.

Professor Oyewole was the former Director of the Research and Development Centre at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria. He was the Head of the Department of Food Science and Technology of the same University from 1992 to 1999. He has over twenty years of University teaching experience, and is a Professor of Food Science and Technology (Microbiology and Biotechnology). He holds a B.Sc degree in Microbiology from the Obafemi Awolowo University (then, University of Ife), Ile Ife, Nigeria and Masters and Doctorate degrees from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. He is a former grantee of the International Foundation of Science and currently serves as a Scientific Adviser to the organisation in the area of Food Science.

Similarly, Prof. Justin Wane assumed duty at the AAU Secretariat on January 23, 2006 as Project Officer responsible for the HIV/AIDS and Higher Education Programme. Prof. Wane was formerly a senior lecturer in Clinical Chemistry and Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of Rwanda.  He also held the position of Vice Dean in charge of Post-Graduate studies.  He holds a D.E.S. in Immunology Orientation from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.  He has extensive technical knowledge of HIV/AIDS, experience in networking, and of HIV/AIDS in university setting. He is currently the President of the Research Committee of the University League Against AIDS and can be reached at: jwane@aau.org

For more information, please contact the AAU Secretariat: info@aau.org

AAU participated in the Launching of Academics Across Borders (AAB) Initiative at the UNESCO head office in Paris from 21^st to 22nd November 2005 aimed at, among others, providing the foundation of a new NORTH-SOUTH co-operation.

Participants of the workshop included Rectors and Vice-Rectors of universities, Presidents of the higher education associations and representatives of donor agencies.

The conference aimed at highlighting the fundamental role of higher education in knowledge-oriented modern societies and economies. By launching this initiative, UNESCO intended to bring a new response to the challenge of the capacity building in higher education institutions, especially in the universities.  The meeting also provided a forum for experience sharing of cross-border research among scholars. 

AAU presentation stressed on the fact that cross-border education and international co-operation between Africa and Europe in particular has always been of interest to the Association, and noted also that many incumbent African executives and policy makers received training in the European universities.

With respect to higher education, the AAU noted that an Africa-Europe co-operation should be founded on three main principles, namely:

• Quality teaching, which will provide the requisite tools to the elite to address development challenges.
• The recognition of specific statute of higher education, which should not be treated as a commodity, but rather as a means to meeting Africa’s society needs; and
• The important role of new information technology and communication, which is today fundamental to undertake any successful university research and one of the main reasons why the AAU organised the ICT parallel event at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) conference in Tunis.

For more information on the Initiative, please contact the AAU Secretariat at: info@aau.org

Twenty (24) environmental experts attended the November Consultation Workshop of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on “Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability into African Universities” at Howick, South Africa.

Discussions on the modules focused on the need for clarity of key concepts such as environment and development, the inclusion of the background and key principles of ESD, and the effect of globalization on sustainable development, as well as vulnerability and risk in the African contexts in relation to sustainable development concepts and policies. Also needed to be introduced into the training toolkit earmarked for higher education lecturers and policy makers are sections introducing legislation, conventions and democracy.

Also suggested for consideration was a focus on resources and how they can be used to strengthen the change process, the inclusion of innovations in research – with specific reference to the orientation and application of research, collaborative research and research partnerships – and innovations in community service programmes, with reference to the joint dissemination of research findings, community problem solving approaches, and university-community dialogue. It was also suggested that transformative learning should also be addressed in the context of different modes of delivery (e.g. face-to-face, distance learning, e-learning etc).

Participants agreed to a training process for the incorporation of ESD into university curricula, to be commenced in the first half of 2006. An ‘Educate the Educator’s’ programme was proposed, to be coordinated through sub-regional structures of the AAU. Participants also agreed to an accreditation/recognition system to be provided by a UNEP/UNESCO/AAU/GHESP partnership for which awards for innovations would be instituted annually.

For more information, please contact the AAU Secretariat: info@aau.org  or ransford@aau.org

Special Graduation Ceremony at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
26^th  November 2005

The Great Hall of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) witnessed a colourful graduation ceremony on 26^th November 2005 to confer honorary degrees on eleven outstanding personalities for high societal achievements. In his address, the Council Chairman, Nana Dr. Otuo Siriboe II explained how over the centuries universities all over the world have been honouring men and women of distinction with such awards.

The Vice Chancellor, Professor Kwesi A. Andam, gave an account of recent developments at the University, including the horrifying murder of a female student at her residence close to downtown Kumasi, which he attributed to the university’s inability to house its student population of over 20,000 on campus, a figure far beyond what the university hostels could accommodate. He, however, noted that two important developments that had recently taken place at the university; namely the transformation of the University into six colleges and the finalisation of the plans for the creation of a Science and Technology Park at the university campus. The ceremony was graced with the presence of many dignitaries, including His Excellency Ambassador van der Wiel of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Ghana..

For more information, please contact the AAU Secretariat: info@aau.org  or pjmsseb@aau.org

Perspectives from 14^th International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa (ICASA), Abuja, 4^th –9^th  December, 2005

African Universities made an historic and collective appearance at the 14th International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa (ICASA), Abuja, from 4^th - 9^th December, 2005 on the theme HIV/AIDS and the family. Twelve AAU- sponsored delegates from Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zimbabwe participated and presented papers at the scientific sessions, facilitated skills building workshops on the needs assessment of persons living with HIV/AIDS, conducted training in the AAU HIV/AIDS Toolkit, attended a satellite session on the social sciences and HIV/AIDS organized by CODESRIA and sponsored by the Swedish International development Agency (SIDA), and mounted poster exhibitions of Universities’ HIV/AIDS research work.

Several dignitaries, including Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, the United Nations body responsible for the fight against HIV/AIDS, Professor Robert C. Gallo, the world-renowned scientist who discovered HIV as the cause of AIDS and Director of the Institute of Human Virology, and Mrs. Winnie Mandela graced ICASA, which was hosted at the Abuja International Conference Center (ICC). Two giant size AAU banners featured prominently at the main entrance of the venue, attracting passersby, delegates, policy makers and donors alike, some of who have since approached AAU for collaboration.

As part of the pre-conference activities, a march was organized across Abuja by people from all walks of life, including persons with disability. During the closing ceremony, a group of women living with HIV wrapped themselves in black plastic bags and staged a peaceful protest outside the conference hall to demand free anti-retroviral drugs for Africans and to stop discrimination of HIV/AIDS patients by health care workers.

According to new research findings presented at ICASA by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), introducing payment for HIV/AIDS care increases the risk of treatment failure. The research revealed that in Lagos, Nigeria, among patients who had to pay for their own AIDS care, 44% had multiple treatment interruptions or took insufficient dosages due to lack of funds. African universities were therefore tasked to undertake research and play advocacy and community education roles using their large populations of students.

One important lesson learnt was that the AIDS epidemic is highly varied and therefore, it is inaccurate to speak of a single “African” epidemic, just as it would be misleading to apply insights of the epidemic gleaned from specific parts or sub regions to the entire sub-Saharan Africa region.

The Association of African Universities organised the 1st Conference on African Education and Research Networking Infrastructure from 14^th to 15^th November, 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia.  This was followed immediately by a Conference organised by the World Society on Information Science (WSIS), also in Tunis from 16^th to 18^th November 2005.  Below is the report by a Tunisian newspaper “La Presse de Tunisie”.

La Presse de Tunisie, Tuesday, 15^th November 2005

WSIS - 1^st Conference on the African Education and Research Networking Infrastructure.

Creating Consortia to Reduce the Cost of Connection

If globalisation resulted in the opening of borders and the emergence of a global village where the dissemination of information has never been so free as it is today, this globalisation, paradoxically, contributed to  the widening of the gap between the developed countries and the less developed ones, since conditions and the level of access to the world network vary from one country to another. This gap is in particular observed in the fields of education and research where the infrastructure, as the ICTs are concerned, is not sufficiently developed in some African countries in order to enable student researchers and teachers to access the same level of information as their counterparts in the developed countries. The Association of African Universities yesterday, organized a conference on this issue, in which many European and African experts participated.

In addition to the weaknesses observed in the field of ICT availability, institutions of higher education, which should be the forerunners of technological revolution in Africa, are not able to play this role because of their own weak information systems. Indeed, the development and the application of new technologies in African higher education institutions face human and financial constraints. The high cost of connectivity and the lack of human resources and training on the installation of information networks handicap universities to take advantage of the global economy of information and knowledge acquisition. Mr. Robert Hawkins of the World Bank presented findings of a study conducted in 2004 on the status of and access to information and communication technologies in African countries.

This study highlighted many gaps between the countries in North Africa and those in Central and Southern Africa. In addition to the differences observed in connectivity, some countries on the continent experience difficulties in obtaining satellite connectivity to enable them set up computer networks for the dissemination of information and the development of research.

“The study has shown that many African higher education institutions did not develop strategy for the installation of their networks. The development and on-going policy of new technologies show some weaknesses, from which we made recommendations. These are about the improvement of the management of information networks and the facilitation of collaboration between universities so as to obtain a reduction of the connectivity cost.

But the development of new technologies in the field of education and research bypasses the participation of the private sector, which would make it possible to fund the installation of university networks”.

The level of connectivity has many discrepancies from one country to the other in Africa.

Mr. Duncan Martin, TENET, South Africa, stated that to surmount the increasingly large pressure on their computing infrastructure, developing countries should plan towards enhancing the size of their bandwidth, together with better management of Internet applications and appropriate control measures to avoid undesirable uses.  Report by: I. Haouari.

1.   Guide to Higher Education in Africa (Third Edition): An AAU IAU/UNESCO publication, 2004

Other Publications

2.                Bridging the Gap between Scientists and Science Educators: 4 Regional Workshops jointly organised by the Education and Natural Sciences Sectors for Africa, the Arab States, Asia and Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean in 2004-2005. http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php- url_id=4213&url_do=do_topic&url_section=201.html

3.                  Final report of the 9th UNESCO/NGO Collective Consultation on Higher Education (UNESCO, Paris, 6^th - 8^th April 2005).  http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-url_id=40002&url_do=do_topic&url_section=201.html

4.            African Higher Education: An International Reference Handbook: by Damtew Teferra and Philip G. Altbach, editors© 2003Indiana University Press, 864 pgs. ISBN: 0-253-34186-8

                  http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/inhea/AfrHEbook.htm

5.          AIDS Epidemic Update, December 2005: Special Report on HIV Prevention. Publ. Year: 2005; Corporate author:  UNAIDS; WHO http://www.unaids.org/epi2005/doc/report_pdf.html
Collation:  90 p., illus., maps

Each prize is awarded by a jury of internationally renowned scientists charged with the selection of the awardees. The Jury is chaired by the president of TWAS. Members of this jury are not eligible for the prize.

Nominations

Nominations are invited from TWAS members, selected individuals, as well as from science academies, national research councils, universities and scientific institutions. Self nominations will not be accepted.

Enquiries

Enquiries and nomination forms are available from the TWAS secretariat (Info@twas.org, www.twas.org)

Nominations for the 2006 prizes should be sent to:

Prof. Mohamed H.A Hassan,

Executive Director, TWAS, c/o ICTP

Strada Costiera 11, 34014 Trieste, Italy

Deadline is 31^st March 2006.

Upcoming Events around High Education

AAU Higher Education Events

• Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP) Cohort Building Meeting, 29^th January – 3^rd February 2006, Sogakope, Ghana

• AAU Staff Retreat, 17^th – 19^th February 2006, Akosombo, Ghana

• Revitalizing Higher Education – AU/AAU Experts’ Meeting,  27^th – 28^th February 2006, Accra, Ghana

• Meeting of the Steering Committee of the Working Group on Higher Education of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) - Friday 24^th and Saturday 25^th March 2006, Libreville, Gabon

Other Higher Education Events

• 3^rd Regional Scientific Committee Meeting for Europe & North America,

• UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge in Paris, France from 23^rd-24^th February 2006,
• 4^th Regional Scientific Committee Meeting for Africa: UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge in  Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 9^th- 10^th March 2006,
• Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) Biennial, Gabon, March 2006