Going ‘Glocal’ – One way to boost global competitiveness

A survey conducted by a Ghanaian university suggests that African universities should focus on producing graduates with both local and global orientations – a 'glocal' approach – in order to be in a position to address continental challenges and promote global competitiveness.

The questionnaire administered to a cross-section of respondents at the University of Cape Coast formed the basis of a paper by Domwin Dabire Kuupole and Kofi Kodah Mawuloe from that university, delivered at the COREVIP conference in Cairo this week.

The theme of the four-day conference is ''The Role of Higher Education Institutions in Promoting the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 16-25)''.

The paper titled "Towards revitalizing and expanding tertiary education, research and innovation to address continental challenges and promote competitiveness: Role of academia in Africa" argues that the findings of the study could be “universally applicable” to African universities.

It says some of the key ways to produce graduates with 'glocal' orientation include:

• • Introducing more competitive and innovative programmes that address global technological and economic challenges;
  
  
• • Reviewing course contents regularly;
  
  
• • Encouraging inter-university and interdisciplinary research;
  
  
• • Introducing institutional self-assessment and peer-review mechanisms in higher education institutions; and
  
  
• • Research for sustainable development.

The study concludes that if Africa is to succeed socially, economically and politically, governments must invest “seriously” in building the higher education sector.

University World News canvassed the views of conference participants on how African universities can improve their global competitiveness.

Emerging technologies

“The use of the emerging educational technologies to support teaching, learning and research is fundamentally changing the face of higher education provision worldwide," according to Professor Clement Dzidonu, president of Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), who presented a paper titled "The changing face of higher education in the technological age: A critical diagnosis of the role of Africa higher education institutions towards the implementation of CESA 16-25."

"For African higher education institutions to play an effective role in promoting the aspirations and the goals of CESA 16-25, they must recognise and harness these technologies that promise to disrupt educational delivery modes and the traditional systems that characterise the operations of most of the African institutions."

Updating curriculum

Rajen Padayachi, quality assurance expert in the institutional planning department of Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, South Africa, said digital education should start early. “Elements of digital education … must be integrated into curricula in primary education – this must be modernised to include the design of computational applications, data analysis and software design," he said.

Padayachi, who is also lead author in a study entitled "Qualitative and quantitative effects of Quality Assurance review of academic and support units”, said artificial intelligence (AI) should be incorporated into disciplines such as civil and mechanical engineering as well as medicine and other areas of study.

"Outdated components in curricula must be eliminated … This would narrow the intelligentsia gap between North America-Europe and Africa", he said.

Staff academic performance and support

"Access to research grants has been an uphill task for many researchers in Africa over the years. Though there are indisputable structural and systemic challenges militating against access to research grants by African scholars, there are also individual factors affecting their access to grants," said Nnamdi Uchechukwu, a lecturer at Crawford University, Nigeria.

Uchechukwu, author of a study entitled "Individual factors influencing access to research grants among African researchers: A study of Crawford University, Nigeria", recommended that researchers explore research capacity building, collaboration, and networking opportunities to increase access to research grants.

"Higher institutions should … build the capacity of their academic staff, especially those at the lower cadre to be able to attract grants … and as such, carry out ground-breaking research," said Uchechukwu.

Dickson Adom, a researcher at the department of educational innovations in science and technology of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, told University World News: "There is a need to introduce mandatory academic stress management courses to all higher institution learners and occasional academic stress management workshops for university faculty."

Adom is the lead author for a study entitled "Effective Management Strategies of Academic Stress in Higher Institutions of Ghana" which was presented at the conference.