Africa Top Success Ils font l'Afrique
Taking the floor on Wednesday in Dakar within the framework of the Summit on higher education in Africa for the development in Africa, the former United Nations Secretary General, Koffi Annan, suggested partnership between government, universities and institutions for the revitalization of Higher education in Africa, next to other essential solutions that will constitute the background of this dynamics of change.
Theme of the communication: « higher education and economic, political and social progress of Africa« .
For M Annan, « the partnership with the private sector can allow higher education overcoming the inadequacy between the market needs and the skills of the young graduates. Otherwise university degrees will not allow the young people to have the jobs they look for and could not help in the development of Africa« .
Koffi Annan reminded that he himself noticed « the extent and the complexity of this re-energization challenge of higher education« . It is a question at first for institutions and universities of benefiting from the partnership.
The latter evoked some specific advantages of this partnership between government, private sector, universities and research institutes all around the world.
The idea of this partnership is to pay more attention to the achievement of the universal education. For that purpose, he pointed out that « it will be necessary to make strategic alliances with partners and foreign investors« .
For the former UN Secretary General, « the young graduates have no skills required by the labor market because the university educations were designed to train academics, state employees and employees of the formal economy while our countries are highly informal« .
« The lack of financing is also a brake for Research institutes to be recognized in their domain. But thanks to the cooperation of the African universities, the continent can build centers of excellence that would allow improving the quality of the research« , estimated Koffi Annan.
The former Vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana, Koffi Annan is today the manager of the continental institution « African Progress Panel« .
Original text by: Blaise AKAME
