At Opening Plenary Session of 2021 Convening, Collaborative Director, Rose Dodd, shares Education Collaborative approach in amplifying its impact across the continent over the next years.
Over the last four years, through the Education Collaborative initiative, we have been working to build the foundational structures of a network of institutions dedicated to exemplary higher education in Africa.
Today, the collaborative is a growing network of higher education institutions that are uncompromising in achieving excellence in teaching and learning, research, innovation, and quality student outcomes in Africa. Institutions whose graduates Create jobs, Transform industries, and Lead economies.
As a network, our goal is to amplify the excellence and efforts of individual institutions and provide the platform for them to mentor and support their peers. This way, institutions build excellence within their internal systems and structures so they can become exemplary in their outcomes, and then collaboratively build excellence in their country and region.
Since 2017, executive leadership, faculty, and staff of institutions, as well as regulators and other higher-education stakeholders, have engaged in virtual and in-person conferences and workshops, projects, consultations, and mentorship programs. The consultation and mentorship program has been critical in helping new and existing institutions leapfrog growing pains in key areas of student affairs and academic systems while building their internal systems.
Over the next 10 years, we will continue to build out the regional clusters of exemplar institutions, and work together with them to determine priorities, grow regional engagement in initiatives, identify pivotal partnerships, and ultimately bring the shifts we envision in student employability and entrepreneurial outcomes.
The regional hubs in Africa will be driven by committees of higher-education leaders who coordinate the region’s transformation. Beginning with the East African region this year, we will roll out 4 regional hubs in sub-Saharan Africa by 2025. This critical mass of institutions and core industry stakeholders will conservatively transform over 1.1 million students to be ethical, career-ready, and entrepreneurial by 2030.
Our key transformational goal areas are in
- Ethics and Leadership Development
- Training Students with Relevant Career Readiness
- Enabling active Entrepreneurship Ecosystems
- Developing systems for Accountability and Sustainability, and
- Developing Inclusive, equitable, and diverse institutions
These goal areas are not fixed, they are driven by the developmental needs of our continent and contexts. Institutions with evidence of impactful outcomes in transformation goal areas will lead focal initiatives, projects, and collaborations related to those areas. And share best practices and co-create innovations with peers on the continent.
This project to transform Africa by developing quality systems for productive graduates cannot be done by one institution alone. And the Education Collaborative initiative is dedicating the next decade to foster the collaborations needed to amplify the efforts and impacts of institutions. This way, we collectively grow and strengthen higher education centers of excellence on the continent.
Thank you
