Abstract
It has always been envisaged that higher education in Africa would be a major booster in economic growth and social inclusion if structured well. Unfortunately, several of these institutions are waning in regard to research output, innovations, community engagement, and quality of training being their core mandate. In the process, they have become less effective in regards to their ability to contribute to the socio-economic development of their host country. Subsequently, the main question to many stakeholders and scholars is whether Africa's higher education system as presently structured and administered has the capability of fulfilling its core mandate – producing competent graduates with the right competencies to aid in carrying forward the continent's development agenda. This review intends to underscore these challenges and brainstorm on possible feasible panaceas to mitigate against this scenario.
TopIntroduction
Higher institutions of scholarship have always played a key function in higher and tertiary education in regard to the social, political, and economic progression of their various countries. In that regard, there has been a tendency to perceive learning at higher institutions of scholarship experience as one that actually merits to be taken as real learning to the extent of comparing it with skills acquired in lower tertiary institutions branded as training in vocational, craft, and polytechnics. Theoretically, training implies the gaining of practical skills purposed towards accomplishing explicit tasks with essentially a chance or obligation for the student to attain aptitudes in critical thinking, wider knowledge, and character formation to understand the broader social and educational frameworks in the globe (Sylla, Ez-zaïm &Teferra, 2003).
In developing regions like Africa, higher education is a powerful tool for economic empowerment and an avenue for filling critical knowledge and skill gaps needed for its economic progression. The numerical growth of higher educational institutions in Africa has been exponential but not synonymous with quality with the exemption of states in Northern and South Africa (Damtew,2003). This scenario has been attributed to numerous challenges facing these institutions right from inception, which calls for urgent concerted efforts of several stakeholders, development partners, individual states, and well-wishers to restructure and reshape higher education for the sole purpose of maximizing learners’ learning outcomes. In so doing this will empower the graduates to play their respective roles in filling the patent critical knowledge and skills gaps much sort in the twenty-first-century labour force industry (Gondwe & Walenkamp,2011).
Several of these institutions have gone into waning in regards to quality of research, teaching, innovations, community engagement, and quality of training being their core mandate. In the process, they have become less effective in regard to their ability to contribute to the socio-economic development of their host country (Lulat,2003). A major direct repercussion of the underdevelopment of higher education in Africa is witnessed high rates of relocation of quality learners from Africa to developed regions in search of better education prospects as they run away from what their parents and guardians regard as deteriorating higher education conditions (Assie-Lumumba,2006). It is on this note that this chapter intends to underscore these challenges, especially on glowing skill gaps, and brainstorm on possible feasible panaceas to mitigate against them.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Panacea: Solution or remedy for skill gaps in Africa’s higher education.
Africa: The world's second-largest and second-most populated region with a population of about one point four billion as of 2021 thus accounting for approximately eighteen percent of the world’s population.
Skills Gap: Variance between higher education graduates' present aptitudes or competencies and the skillset best matching the current industry.
Universities: Subset of higher education, play the largest and most central role in higher education, covering the scope of higher learning and production of knowledge.
Role: Part played by higher education in Africa.
Re-Defining: Reconsider again in a new perspective or reevaluate, reinvent, and rethink the role of higher education in Africa.
Higher Education: Has a more holistic resonance as it encompasses all postsecondary institutions. Embodies all organized learning and training activities at the tertiary level. This includes conventional universities (i.e., those with conventional arts, humanities, and science faculties) as well as specialized universities (like institutions specializing in agriculture, engineering, science, and technology). The concept also includes conventional post-secondary institutions (like Polytechnics, colleges of education, and vocations). Under the umbrella of ‘higher education’ come all forms of professional institutions... Even this wide spectrum does not exhaust the possibilities of forms of higher education (UNESCO 1994 AU46: The in-text citation "UNESCO 1994" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ).
Tertiary Knowledge: And skills acquired in technical/vocational institutions labeled as training; geared toward performing specific tasks without necessarily an opportunity or requirement for the learner to acquire competence in critical thinking.