Since 2017, The Education Collaborative has led a new model for collaboration in African higher education that is helping grow the strength of the ecosystem, with an estimated 320,041 students having seen improved learning outcomes based on the collective work of the network. Vice Chancellor of Université Riara, Professor Robert Gateru, shares his institution’s experience since becoming a member of The Collaborative.
Joining The Education Collaborative was an inflection point for us because it came at a time when we were relooking at our strategies around the areas of employability, entrepreneurship, ethics, leadership, values-based education, and the ability for us to document and measure our student outcomes. It was and still is our strong belief that for higher education to create the impact expected of it by society, measurement of student outcomes must gain as much visibility, if not more, than inputs such as student numbers and infrastructure, among others.
The Collaborative’s support ecosystem and resources aligned perfectly with the challenges we were grappling with at Riara University, and the opportunity to grow alongside other institutions facing similar issues was a game-changer. We also understood The Collaborative’s philosophy that education efforts to accelerate the continent’s growth were too significant and urgent for any single institution to tackle alone.
Without hesitation, we expressed our interest and made the decision to join The Collaborative in 2021. Instead of judgment, we found a community eager to discover the strengths and contributions of each member institution. This willingness to commit to common ideals voluntarily rather than through regulatory coercion truly fascinated us.
Since then, through peer learning and the exchange of best practices and case studies from other member institutions, we have been able to fine-tune a lot of our strategies around employability. Further, we have been able to document most of our processes in a more structured manner and have been able to share some of our best practices around employability, community service, and soft skills development with other member institutions. Accessing grants from The Collaborative also allowed us to pilot ideas, and we eagerly shared our findings with the network. These deep collaborations are enabling all member institutions to grow together.
Growing our Collaborations within East Africa
As a founding member of The Education Collaborative’s East Africa Regional Hub, we have also actively shaped the regional hub’s strategic direction alongside other member institutions. We are confident that these strategies will drive substantial progress in the next five years.
Further, through the learning from The Collaborative and additional funding from other core partners of the university, especially the British Council, we have been able to set up a Virtual Accelerator for student businesses. In 2022 alone, we mentored 11 student businesses, and currently, over 40 student enterprises are enrolled in the program. The thinking behind the virtual accelerator is that with the power of internet connectivity, we are able to reach more students, including those from outside Riara University, from the comfort of their locations. We have also been able to revamp our entrepreneurship curriculum, ensuring that all students receive basic training and those with innovative ideas can access further support through the Accelerator.
From our experience, networks like The Education Collaborative bridge critical gaps in training employable workforces for Africa. They bring together different stakeholders to craft viable solutions for the continent’s employability challenge.
Our expectations, therefore, are that more and more institutions and other stakeholders will join The Collaborative or, indeed, such other networks in the spirit of collaboration and not competition. After all, we are all working towards the same goal—enhancing the employability of African graduates. The involvement of industry partners, donors, philanthropists, governments, and communities is essential. We have witnessed increased interest and participation from these stakeholders in our activities, which eliminates finger-pointing and creates a melting pot of ideas, strategies, and interventions. The deep commitment shown by Collaborative members is truly inspiring and paints a bright future for Africa and its youth.
Join us on this transformative journey as we collaborate to shape the future of African education and empower the next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, and change-makers. Together, we can make a difference.
Courriel education.collaborative@ashesi.edu.gh for more information on how to engage in the network.
