With the increase in number of students applying for higher education in Africa, accurate access to information related to available universities on the continent has become a challenge for users. Most of the search engines or portals available are not Africa based and don’t have access to information from universities, hence updated information on programmes available, admission dates, results announced and other campus related activities are not available.
A student in higher education institution want to gain access to continent wide and global information about all activities in other peer institutions. I tried searching through the information online for HE institutions across continent, and not to my surprise i had to search through multiple sites for multiple days before getting scattered and not up-to-date information about institutions on the continent. My main interest was to look for a central point of information for most of the HE institutions. Yes, most of these institutions do have their websites, with good information, but if i look from a student or applicant or researcher point of view, it will be quite cumbersome for me to first look for names of all institutions and second, search for their website links. I must have to master my search engine capabilities, before i will be able to make a directory of all those websites followed by digging into their details to gain access to information relevant to my area of interest. Some of the information which users are looking are:
A student in higher education institution want to gain access to continent wide and global information about all activities in other peer institutions. I tried searching through the information online for HE institutions across continent, and not to my surprise i had to search through multiple sites for multiple days before getting scattered and not up-to-date information about institutions on the continent. My main interest was to look for a central point of information for most of the HE institutions. Yes, most of these institutions do have their websites, with good information, but if i look from a student or applicant or researcher point of view, it will be quite cumbersome for me to first look for names of all institutions and second, search for their website links. I must have to master my search engine capabilities, before i will be able to make a directory of all those websites followed by digging into their details to gain access to information relevant to my area of interest. Some of the information which users are looking are:
- Admission information
- Available programmes
- Results announcement
- Academic resources from peer institutions
- Academic staff information
- Networking between academic staff
- Scholarship information in African and Global institutions
- Campus based activities information, and last but not the least
- Relevant and well structured directory of institutions in Africa withing working links to access them.
Applicants and existing students on the continent want access to free and paid academic resources written by academia across the continent. To keep themselves updated with the news from their and other university campuses across the continent they need to rely on multiple sites, which seems to be impossible.
Available academic network for faculties are not able to link academic staff members across all the African universities. Since their culture, requirement and views are different than the other continents based academic networking sites, their sharing of views among themselves are a challenge.
There are no platforms available for African students to access information about scholarships available in African universities. Moreover there is no common platform for African students to gain access for scholarship information available for them across the world. They have to rely on multiple search engines and individual university sites for this information.
As per data available on Association of African Universities website (www.aau.org), there are a total of 359 registered universities (as in September 2015), from 620 accredited universities across continent (source www.4icu.org). AAU does provide information about the name, country of origin and date registered with AAU information to users, but it does not provide information about the profile of university, field of studies available, admission cycle and other relevant information needed by an applicant searching for information online. AAU’s website is a good source of information for university officials but not for students.
Another online database available is for African Higher Education Institutions (AHEI), a project started in 2002 by AAU, African Studies Association and African Studies Centre at Michigan State University. Last updated information updated on this website is on 1st January 2007. This information can be accessed on http://africa.isp.msu.edu/AUP/search-form.htm,
There is more information available on university education and spending in Africa in various studies conducted by American or European universities. One such study was conducted by Harvard University and information can be accessed by visiting below link:
http://ent.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Factoids.html
More information are available about studies conducted on HE in Africa by Boston College, US. Study tried to create an International Network for Higher Education in Africa and can be accessed by visiting below link.
https://www.bc.edu/research/cihe/inhea.html
Directory listings about African Universities are available on www.4icu.org, but profile and details of the programmes on offer are not available. News, reviews and academic information about faculty members are also not available on this website. A total of 1441 universities exists in Africa as per www.webometrics.info (http://www.webometrics.info/en/Africa?page=14). This is a contradicting figure. This is the challenge.
A lot of free e-resource websites are available currently, but resources linked to African academia from African universities are not widely available. Current solutions available are through open access database, free journals and other academic journals from various African universities. Access to free e-books, classroom presentations, lecture notes and other blogs are not widely known. Due to wide increase in internet connectivity throughout the continent, students now not only want to know about what’s happening on their campus, but other campuses also in their country or distant countries within Africa. Currently solution to this is to browse through various universities website for news or rely on pan-African news sites, which is quite cumbersome. Most of these information are administration or research centric and not students centric. Some of the sites which provide these news are:
- www.universityworldnews.com
- www.aau.org
- www.allafrica.com
- www.timeshighereducation.com
- www.avu.org
- www.cambridge-africa.cam.ac.uk/
African academia is not having one platform to network within themselves, share their views and experiences in teaching and learning and other issues related to academic execution. Some of the available academic networking sites are:
- www.aggn.org/
- www.garnet.edu.gh
- www.sanren.ac.za/
- www.africandiasporanetwork.org/
To summarize, not all users have search engine capabilities to dig through internet, visit multiple sites, relate them and make a judgement. Neither we expect users to devote numerous hours on internet to get relevant information, which should be available through a click of few links only. Technology can play a major role in bringing all these information together at a central portal, which is quite possible. Information are available on the internet, and it needs to be presented to the user using an African Centric HE Portal.
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