This book advances an in-depth, comprehensive analysis of flagship universities in Africa – the largest, most selective, and most prestigious universities on the continent. The book draws on a range of country-specific case-studies, including Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Zambia, to explore a range of issues associated with flagship universities and their role in higher education in Africa. . Newly-established institutions in new nation states, and states emerging from conflict, often rely on these flagship universities to train their academics, and build their intelligentsia; flagship universities are thus capacity-builders and trend-setters in their respective countries and sub-regions. This volume brings together a range of scholars to celebrate the impact, influence and contributions of African universities, not only within Africa, but across the globe The book will be of great significance to students and researchers in the field of education, particularly those with an interest in sociology and politics of higher education.

Revisiting Africa's Flagship Universities: National, International, and Local Dynamics offers a compelling exploration of Africa's large, public higher education institutions. The book delves into the evolving roles of these universities, examining how they navigate their responsibilities at national, international and local levels. The book uncovers the tensions between global aspirations, national relevance and local realities. In doing so, this insightful work sheds light on the unique challenges and opportunities faced by African flagship universities, revealing their potential as forces for local, national and international collaboration and development. Revisiting Africa's Flagship Universities provides rigorous evidence on the relevance of higher education at the local and national level, and the interrelation between these and the burgeoning international roles of universities. This book makes for important reading for university staff, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future of higher education in Africa.

The New Flagship University is an expansive vision for leading national universities and an alternative narrative to global rankings and World Class Universities. The Flagship model explores pathways for universities to re-shape their missions and operational features to expand their relevancy in the societies that gave them life and purpose.

This book contributes to the understanding of regional and global perspectives on the development and challenges the higher education sector in sub-Saharan Africa faces in the era of globalization. It focuses on the critical aspects of the higher education sector in the Global South, with a particular emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. It brings together empirical, theoretical and philosophical perspectives from researchers in some of the leading universities in sub-Saharan Africa. The book highlights the higher education sector’s stages of growth and development and the contemporary challenges it faces in aligning its goals and capacity globally, and maintaining its image and public identity locally. This book covers neoliberal educational reforms, leadership and governance, pedagogy, technology, the global knowledge economy, and digital advancement. It delves into how the nature and practice of learning, teaching, research, and community engagement as core functions of higher education are re-oriented to contribute to societal transformation in Africa. Further, the book discusses the implications of contemporary issues in higher education: internationalization, employability, leadership and management, and accountability and autonomy in teaching, research, and community engagement.

This book offers theoretical and practical insights into the marketing of higher education in Africa. It explores the key players, challenges and policies affecting higher education across the continent; their marketing strategies and the students’ selection process. While acknowledging the vast size of the continent, this book aims to provide an understanding of the dynamics of higher education in Africa. This book recognises the private and government involvement in higher education provision and students and staff as stakeholders in the marketisation process. Strategic efforts are directed by universities to attract prospective students. This book further addresses issues such as the responses of higher education sectors to the notion of markets and marketing; consumerism and competition in higher education in Africa; conceptions of the commodification of higher education in Africa; and the dominance of Western epistemologies and their influence in transforming higher education sectors. Students as consumers in increasingly marketised higher education sectors in Africa are also discussed. Though primarily for marketing students and academic researchers, the book's feature of blended theoretical and practical knowledge means that it will also be of interest to marketing practitioners and university managers.

Gathering unique and thoughtful contributions from leading international scholars, this timely Research Handbook offers diverse perspectives on university rankings twenty years after the first global rankings emerged. It presents an in-depth analysis that reflects the current state of research on rankings, their influence and impact.

While African universities retain their core function as primary institutions for advancement of knowledge, they have undergone fundamental changes in this regard. These changes have been triggered by a multiplicity of factors, including the need to address past economic and social imbalances, higher education expansion alongside demographic and economic growth concerns, and student throughput and success with the realization that greater participation has not meant greater equity. Constraining these changes is largely the failure to recognize the encroachment of the profit motive into the academy, or a shift from a public good knowledge/learning regime to a neo-liberal knowledge/learning regime. Neo-liberalism, with its emphasis on the economic and market function of the university, rather than the social function, is increasingly destabilizing higher education particularly in the domain of knowledge, making it increasingly unresponsive to local social and cultural needs. Corporate organizational practices, commodification and commercialization of knowledge, dictated by market ethics, dominate university practices in Africa with negative impact on professional values, norms and beliefs. Under such circumstances, African humanist progressive virtues (e.g. social solidarity, compassion, positive human relations and citizenship), democratic principles (equity and social justice) and the commitment to decolonization ideals guided by altruism and common good, are under serious threat. The book goes a long way in unraveling how African universities can respond to these challenges at the levels of institutional management, academic scholarship, the structure of knowledge production and distribution, institutional culture, policy and curriculum.

Reviews "This volume brings together excellent scholarship and innovative policy discussion to demonstrate the essential role of higher education in the development of Africa and of the world at large. Based on deep knowledge of the university system in several African countries, this book will reshape the debate on development in the global information economy for years to come. It should be mandatory reading for academics, policy-makers and concerned citizens, in Africa and elsewhere.” Manuel Castells, Professor Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley, Laureate of the Holberg Prize 2012 and of the Balzan Prize 2013 "The dominant global discourse in higher education now focuses on ‘world-class’ universities – inevitably located predominantly in North America, Europe and, increasingly, East Asia. The rest of the world, including Africa, is left to play ‘catch-up’. But that discourse should focus rather on the tensions, even contradictions, between ‘excellence’ and ‘engagement’ with which all universities must grapple. Here the African experience has much to offer the high-participation and generously resourced systems of the so-called ‘developed’ world. This book offers a critical review of that experience, and so makes a major contribution to our understanding of higher education.” Sir Peter Scott, former editor of Times Higher Education and Professor of Higher Education Studies, University College London, Institute of Education

Until recently, Eurocentrist history professors taught that it was the Europeans who brought higher education to the African continent. While the Europeans have indeed influenced African education in recent times, there is some vital information that most history books leave out: for centuries before the arrival of the Europeans, the vast and advanced native African civilizations already had sophisticated universities and other institutions of higher education to boast about. This book is an attempt to fill the chasm in today's literature regarding this topic. It will be of interest to those researching the accurate, non-Euro-biased history of Africa.