Re: Dr Bolaji Aluko//Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FOOD-FOR-THOUGHT: Africa Agenda 2063 - The Africa We Want [And The Role of Universities in Achieving It]

Evelyn:

Otuoke is going on fine, thanks.

I am not aware of any formal linkage that you inquired about, but we could try to establish one.

I am aware of bilateral linkages between individual universities, eg Howard University, with South Africa, Senegal, Rwanda, Ghana, sometimes even Egypt, but I am not aware of any consortium,-to-consortium linkages, eg HBCUs with AAU.  There was once a program that I participated in funded by USAID that linked four HBCUs (Howard, Morgan State, Clarke-Atlanta, NCA&T plus MIT) with Tecnikons in South Africa soon after Apartheid fell,  but that has since folded up.

Hope that helps.

Bolaji Aluko

On Saturday, August 1, 2015, msjoe21st via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Doc:

Hope you are doing great in Otueke. When I thought you were making 60k, I said you are truly the son of the soil (lol) toiling. Then you started posting figures, disbursements,  and petroleum. At that point I got completely  lost. (LOL)

I will need your able assistance on this being the Special Adviser on  Diaspora Affairs on the ECOSOCC of the African Union, a unique organ with the mandate  to sensitize AU Agenda  2063 and engage the citizenry. Is there any  program linking historical black universities in the Diaspora to a network of African Universities?

Best,

MsJoe

To Lead You Must be a Servant

-----Original Message-----
From: Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com>
To: USAAfrica Dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>; NiDAN <nidan-group@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Jul 31, 2015 7:00 pm
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FOOD-FOR-THOUGHT: Africa Agenda 2063 - The Africa We Want [And The Role of Universities in Achieving It]

 

Profs. Bayo Olukoshi, Bolaji Aluko, and Pius Adesanmi at the THE African Universities Summit in Johannesburg, on July 31, 2015

Olukoshi (paraphrasing):  "African universities cannot afford to be non-chalant observers, or un-charitable critics of governments....on Africa Agenda 2063. they must strive to be at the center of the Agenda, to drive it.."

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:  

http://www.nigerianmuse.com/20150731163135zg/nm-projects/africa-projects/africa-agenda-2063/

Africa Agenda 2063

 

 Also to   view the report, you can click the link below.

	AU_Agenda_2063_popular_version_05092014_EN.pdf

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http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/varsities-must-lead-education-rethink-1.1893544#.Vbvyx_lViko

'Varsities must lead education rethink'

July 31 2015 at 12:34pm 
By Tebogo Monama  Comment on this story

INDEPENDENT MEDIA Former president Thabo Mbeki, left, and Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, director of the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning, at the opening of the Times Higher Education Africa Universities Summit at the University of Johannesburg. Photos: Nokuthula Mbatha

Johannesburg - There might be a need to rethink the entire education system to ensure pupils who leave secondary schools are better prepared for higher education.

According to African Institute for Economic Development and Planning director Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, universities across Africa often complain that the students they get from high schools aren't ready for tertiary education.

Olukoshi said universities needed to lead the conversation on the continent rethinking the entire education system.

"Many universities are failed by secondary and primary education systems that are completely out of sync with the kind of students the professors expect. Too many universities complain… that the products of our secondary and primary educational systems do not have the necessary preparations to enable them to have a useful academic time.

"The necessary conversation that must take place about how to revitalise and create a coherent national educational system has been lacking. Universities can play an important role in this conversation," Olukoshi said.

He was speaking at the Times Higher Education Africa Universities Summit that started at the University of Johannesburg on Thursday and ends on Friday.

Olukoshi said because of the complaints, public primary and secondary schools were fast being replaced by private schools. He said the same trend was spreading to universities, with more private higher education institutions opening up.

He said that to build better higher education institutions in Africa, collaboration among institutions was important.

"Breaking down barriers, including sometimes purely egotistic barriers, for collaboration within countries - among universities - and beyond countries among African universities is important. Hardly any university on our continent is able to claim to have all the qualified faculty it requires to compete globally.

"Thinking of ways to break down barriers that will enable us to develop faculties for the joint benefit and mobility between universities' boundaries is an important part of the challenge," Olukoshi said.

Former president Thabo Mbeki, who opened the summit, said governments needed to relook at the funding of higher education institutions.

He said that after independence, most African countries viewed universities with pride as they might have helped to attain liberation.

"There is fairly extensive literature about how the then healthy relationship between the state and the university was weakened and destroyed.

"In many instances, if not most, this was linked to the introduction of structural adjustment programmes by the Bretton Woods institutions and the perception among the African ruling elite that the universities were serving as centres of political opposition to this elite," Mbeki said.

From this straining of relations, governments started "seeing expenditure on universities and therefore higher education as a burdensome but unavoidable cost rather than an absolutely necessary and beneficial investment".

He said universities now had a tough task to convince governments that they were indeed interested in the African development agenda and, therefore, needed better investments to further this.

"It is only once they are convinced about all this that it would be possible for our governments to lead the process, which would result in the substantially larger public funding that is required and without which many of the radical changes that need to be made will not see the light of day."

The Star

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