Higher Education in Africa: Equity, Access, Opportunity

The chapters contained in this volume address the challenging triad of access, quality and cost in African higher education, with special attention on four countries: Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. The chapters bring vivid detail to the higher education access and equity debate by giving voice to the specific contexts and experiences of the authors in Africa’s varied higher education institutions. They also reflect a focus on financial mechanisms and funding options to improve equity and access to higher education; a focus on educational institutions and the services they must provide to improve learner success; a focus on delivery systems, including distance learning, that are responsive to the needs of diverse groups of learners; and a focus on various kinds of marginalization that exacerbate inequity and exclusion, including gender and populations with disabilities.

This book is part of the African Higher Education Collaborative (AHEC), a project of the Institute of International Education’s Council for International Exchange of Scholars, and received generous support from the Ford Foundation office in Egypt.


Table of Contents

Foreword
Allan E. Goodman, Institute of International Education

Introduction
Improving Equity and Access to African Higher Education: Lessons for Future Directions

Sabine O’Hara

Chapter One: Making Higher Education a Public and Social Good in Africa
Peliwe Lolwana, Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training in South Africa

Chapter Two: Translating Equitable Access into Retention and Success in African Higher Education: The Role and Responsibility of Individual Institutions
Sabiha Y. Essack, University of Kwazulu-Natal.

Chapter Three: Improving Access to Higher Education through Financial Mechanisms: The Case of South Africa and Kenya
Gerald Wangenge-Ouma, University of the Western Cape

Chapter Four: Private Financing as a Means to Improve Access to Higher Education in Africa
Segun Adedeji, University of Ibadan; Pakinaz Baraka, Victor S. Dugga, University of Jos and Stephen O. Odebero, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology

Chapter Five: Addressing Gender Inequality in Higher Education through Targeted Institutional Responses: Field Evidence from Kenya and Nigeria
Ibrahim Oanda, Kenyatta University and Lilian-Rita Akudol, Nnamdi Azikiwe University

Chapter Six: Addressing Access and Success Issues in Higher Education with a Special Focus on Teachers in South Africa
Michael Cross, University of the Witwatersrand and Haroon Mahomed, National Department of Education in South Africa

Chapter Seven: Higher Education Access and Retention Opportunities for Students with Disabilities: Strategies and Experiences from Selected Public Universities in Egypt and Kenya
Violet Wawire, Kenyatta University, Nadia Elarabi, Ain Shams University and Helen Mwanzi, University of Nairobi

Chapter Eight: Disabilities and the Role of Distance Learning in Increasing Access to Higher Education
Felix Kayode Olakulehin, National Open University of Nigeria