HERANA: Contributions to regional development by University of Buea

Posted on 9th December 2011 by marielk in Guest Bloggers and Commentary |Thematic Week

To continue our special week, we are now featuring a post from  one of the students who was linked to the HERANA project. Samuel N. Fongwa recently completed a Masters degree in Higher education studies linked to the  the NOMA programme at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. His masters’ dissertation (for which he earned a distinction) focused on the contribution of universities to regional socio-economic development in African context and his study was an in-depth case study of University of Buea. He is currently enrolled for a PhD in Regional Development at the University of the Free State, South Africa. His research interest is on the actual and potential contribution of universities and higher education institutions to national, regional and local socio-economic development – with specific interest in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. In this post, he will share some of the insights from his master thesis.

The last couple of decades have witnessed significant transformation in the nature, culture, structure and functions of universities. This has been characterised by the emergence of new and more socio-economically relevant universities on the one hand, and an increasing shift of older universities as they become more entrepreneurial, utilitarian and actively engaged in the growth of their local communities, regions and nations. This shift in scholarship has been significantly influenced by a rethink of academic ideologies, management systems, funding structures and most importantly in the type of knowledge needed in the knowledge economy. Case studies from Western Europe, North America including Canada, and increasingly in developing economies reveal that economic growth in success regions is characterised by a conscious policy structure at national, regional and institutional levels aimed at steering universities to engage more actively with their regions (Forrant, 2006; OECD, 2007). (more…)

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HERANA: What is it all about? Presentations by Nico Cloete and Peter Maassen

Posted on 8th December 2011 by marielk in Thematic Week

We had the opportunity to record these two presentations during a recent book presentation in Oslo. The newest publication in the HERANA series is titled “Universities and Economic Development in Africa” and the editors of the book are Nico Cloete, Tracy Bailey, Pundy Pillay, Ian Bunting and Peter Maassen. You can download the book as a pdf from the HERANA website.


Listen without the Flashplayer

In the presentation two of the editors of the book, professor Nico Cloete and professor Peter Maassen, give background information of the whole process, summarise some of the main findings and reflect on the importance and novelty of the project. The book presentation took place at NORAD, and was led by senior advisor Tove Kvil from NORAD.

 

 

 

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HERANA: More democracy through strenghtening higher education

Posted on 7th December 2011 by marielk in Guest Bloggers and Commentary |Thematic Week

In this post, dr Thierry Luescher-Mamashela gives his insights into the relationship between development of democracy and higher education in Africa. dr. Luescher-Mamashela works as a post-doctoral fellow at University of Western Cape and a senior researcher at CHET. 

Higher education strengthens political development and democratisation in Africa in various ways, as three research projects by HERANA have found. While the results of the studies are ambiguous, they reveal opportunities through sustained research to both improve the quality of higher education and support the development of democracy on the continent.

As part of the ‘third wave of democracy’, a great number of African nations embarked on transitions to economic and political liberalisation and democratisation in the 1990s, embracing competitive, multi-party electoral systems within an enabling framework of political and civil rights.

Most recently, the Arab Spring has further raised hopes for the political emancipation and democratisation of countries on the continent. Yet, the global history of democracy – and recent experiences in countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya and Zimbabwe – shows that the democratisation of state and society is not an event; it is an ongoing process marred by difficulties.

As in the ‘old democracies’ of the West, the political emancipation of the people of the ‘new democracies’ of the East and global South remains in different areas of governance and at varying degrees incomplete (and this is not to mention the even greater incompleteness of people’s economic emancipation).

Thus, complementary to studies on higher education’s contribution to economic development in Africa, a number of researchers affiliated with the universities of Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and the Western Cape, coordinated by the Centre for Higher Education Transformation, investigated higher education’s contribution to democracy in Africa. (more…)

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Hedda Podcast – Interview with HERANA project manager and researcher Tracy Bailey

Posted on 6th December 2011 by admin in International Higher Education Podcast |Thematic Week

We continue our thematic week on HERANA with a special episode of our Hedda podcast series. Episode 30 features an interview with Tracy Bailey, who currently works at CHET – the South African based Centre for Higher Eduction Transformation. She is also working on her doctoral dissertation at the University of Western Cape, in Cape Town, South Africa. At CHET she has worked both as a project manager and as a researcher. HERANA is a project focused on developing in-depth and research based knowledge on higher education and development in Africa.

In the interview, Tracy first shares her experiences coordinating such a large multi-national project and gives some tips to those who might embark on a similar process. She then discusses the research findings from the HERANA project, focusing on the relationship between universities and development by putting focus on the pact and academic core. She first sheds light on the three main factors in understanding the role of universities in development and further puts focus on the coordination and connectedness factor. She concludes with some first thoughts about the next phase of HERANA.


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HERANA: Interview with project leader Prof. Nico Cloete

Posted on 5th December 2011 by marielk in Thematic Week

In this video, the HERANA project leader Prof. Nico Cloete introduces the core aspects of the project.  He sheds light on the importance and novelty of HERANA and his experiences with working on the project.  Further, he gives his perspective on what has been the most interesting and surprising findings in the project.

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Welcome to the thematic week on HERANA!

Posted on 5th December 2011 by marielk in Thematic Week

We are extremely pleased to announce our thematic week focusing this time on higher education and development in Africa through highlighting the experiences and knowledge gained through the HERANA project.

HERANA has been led by Prof. Nico Cloete from the Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) in South Africa, with partners from University of Oslo (Norway), Makerere University (Uganda) and the University of the Western Cape (South Africa).

Throughout this upcoming week we will be sharing posts from various members of the project team, amongst else audio presentations from the recent book launch by prof Nico Cloete (CHET) and prof. Peter Maassen (UiO), an interview with the project manager and researcher Tracy Bailey (CHET), a summary of the democracy focus of the project by dr. Thierry Luescher-Mamashela (CHET, UWC), and a case study of University of Buea and economic development by Samuel N. Fongwa (UWC, HEMA programme). 

The main three areas for focus in this first phase of the project have been on: Higher education and economic development, Higher education and democracy and The research-policy nexus. Through these three important aspects, the project has made a unique contribution to both understanding some of the challenges of higher education in Africa, but also contribute to building capacity to deal with some of these complex issues.

In addition, the project has made an important contribution to advancing and contributing to the improvement of policy and practice in Africa. This has lead to the development of the HERANA Gateway which is a search engine to provide information on African higher education research, University World News has started with a special Africa edition, and extensive policy dialogue process.

If you want to find out more about the project, CHET has extensive information about HERANA on their website, including an option to download all the project publications in a pdf format.

HERANA is a project that has been funded by Ford, Rockefeller and Kresge Foundations and the Carnegie Corporation.

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