“Higher education in many African countries continues to be characterised by a crisis of
overcrowding, inadequate staff, deteriorating standards, decaying physical infrastructure,insufficient equipment and declining budgetary and policy support from government. At the same time, however, demands are being made on the tertiary-education sector to produce quality graduates and cutting-edge research in support of national and continental
development. Although recognition is growing that this sector is central to the continent’s ability to meet the objectives of initiatives such as the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the Millennium Development Goals of the UN, policy and institutional reforms in many countries tend to focus on the economic impact of higher education, neglecting the governance dimension. This paper presents highlights of the findings of a scoping study of governance-related programmes and university educators in eight anglophone African universities undertaken in the last quarter of 2008, and a workshop with academics from these institutions held in
Johannesburg on 20–21 May 2009.”
