On March 23, 2015, the Preparation Office of “UNESCO International Centre for Innovation in Higher Education (Shenzhen, China)” invited Wan Xiulan, the professor of the Institute of International and Comparative Education of Zhejiang Normal University to conduct special training on “African Higher Education and Sino-Africa Cooperation on Higher Education”. Professor Qiang Haiyan, the academic director of the Preparation Office hosted this training.
With the development history of African higher education as the base point, Professor Wan introduced the state and situation of African higher education from the aspects of current development status, challenges faced and innovation strategies and initiatives. Africa was once the colony of more than 60 countries and had no formal higher education system before the World War I. There are 54 countries and more than 2,000 universities in Africa, but the gross enrolment ratio is only 7%. Professor Wan also mentioned that colonialism had made a huge influence on Africa, which was showed in several aspects: organizational regionalization and globalization, dual character in extent, dependence in nature and relationship conflict of local relationship, all of which resulted from occupation and control in colonial period, exploitation during the cold war and dependence on external finance and knowledge. In addition, African higher education was also facing lots of problems, such as: weak faulty due to funding shortfall, poor management, low enrolment ratio, dilemma in teaching languages, weak university scientific research ability and sexual imbalance, etc. For the purpose of solving these problems, large-scale admission expansion was adopted, private higher education was developed, university scientific research was strengthened, research universities-“Africa Higher Education Research Fund” and “Center of Excellence” were established, and ”immigrant mobilization plan” are prepared for Africa higher education to relieve weak faulty conditions.
Professor Wan mentioned that there were 5 main forms of cooperation between China and Africa, i.e. 20+20 China-Africa Cooperation Plan, founding of Confucius Institute with African universities, provision of scholarship to study in China for African students, non-human resources training and 10+10 Partner Program of China-Africa Think Tank. Professor Wan also shared Zhejiang Normal University’s successful cooperation experience in China-Africa higher education. Currently, the Africa development initiatives made by Zhejiang Normal University included: firstly, the high beginning localization, and active establishment of high quality development platform, which meant the realization of African research institute-oriented cooperation of several institutes, one forum (as the fixed mechanism of China-Africa civil dialogue, it has been included in the China-Africa cooperation forum framework), two halls, two bases and four standing projects; secondly, high level development, and active generation of high quality academic results; education subjects were taken as an example: 16 country study series of Africa higher education, 6 African education collections of translations and 6 series of education assistance of international organizations; thirdly, high quality service, and active provision of excellent decision consultation; more than 20 advisory reports about Africa had submitted to relevant national ministries and government departments of all levels, and many policies and suggestions had been adopted and approved by national, ministerial and provincial leaders; fourthly, devotion to human resources development with integrative thinking; lastly, devotion to international publicity of Chinese. According to the advantages of the university, educational aid should focus on Africa, and educational aid to Africa should focus on the improvement of African educational management ability and training on faulty. There are 3 institutes of this kind in 3 countries: Cameroon, Tanzania and Mozambique.
Professor Wan also proposed some helpful suggestions with respect to African partners, Chinese partners and non-educational focuses and approaches according to the actual working needs of the Preparation Office, including African regional and national educational agenda that should be paid special attention to, such as African faulty training aimed at relieving the severe shortage of faulty in various education, math & science enrichment classes and teaching training in African fundamental education stage (STEM) and Chinese experience promotion, math & science teaching materials construction and supply in African fundamental education stage, running and training of African secondary and higher vocational and technical school, African female teachers of universities and female cadres training, African female science students training, application training of ICT technology in African universities and Chinese products promotion, participation in international organizations and African regional organizations, discussion on educational plans and policies of African government, research on requirements for African educational cooperation, research on actual results and influences of China-Africa educational cooperation, and provision of policies and suggestions about African educational governance to Chinese government and the permanent mission of China to UNESCO.
During Q&A, teachers raised questions to Professor Wan about cultural, social, political and international relationship issues related to African education, and the constructive research exchange activity was ended in heated discussion.
As one of the key priorities of UNESCO, Africa priority is the principle that should be used in all works of UNESCO. This themed training increased the awareness of the staff of the Preparation Office, promoted the preparation work of the “Center” and provided very favorable resources and capacity building for the priorities of Africa.
Training Site
