15TH International Conference on Private Higher Education in Africa, 25-28 July 2017, African Union Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Theme: Ensuring Quality through Enhanced Public-Private Partnership/Regional Cooperation
Private higher education institutions (PHEIs) in Africa are playing critical roles in producing trained workforce needed to fuel socioeconomic growth and transformation of the continent. However, private providers of higher education face a number of formidable challenges related to national roadmaps, access to resources, external support, and infrastructure including ICT, all of which have implications for quality, affordability, accessibility and relevance of higher education. In this regard, there is a pressing need to strengthen national and regional cooperation to address these challenges, particularly through sustained public-private participation in research, curriculum development and performance appraisals. This, of course, can be done through regular meetings aimed at sharing best practices and lessons learnt with a view to charting the way forward.
Cognizant of this fact, St. Mary’s University (SMU) has been organizing every year national and international research fora since 2003. As a continuation of last year’s experience, St Mary’s University is organizing the 15th International Conference on Private Higher Education in Africa in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC), the Association of African Universities (AAU), the International Institute of Capacity Building for Africa (IICBA)/UNESCO, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Education.
Therefore, all interested researchers, academics and development experts are kindly invited to submit Abstracts (maximum 400 words) and Papers or Posters on any of the following sub-themes:
Sub-theme 1: Accessibility and affordability of private higher education in Africa;
Sub-theme 2: The role of research in ensuring quality and relevance of private higher education in Africa;
Sub-theme 3: Public-private and multi-stakeholder partnership; international cooperation, and the role of the Diaspora in promoting higher education in Africa;
Sub-theme 4: ICT, science, technology, innovation and regional integration through higher education in Africa;
Sub-theme 5: Private higher education as an agent of employment creation and migration management; and
Sub-theme 6: Equity, life-long learning and teacher development in African higher education systems.
