It begins from March 10 to 12 in Dakar.
The primary goal of the summit is to develop a common vision and contribute towards the development of an action plan to transform the African higher education sector in the next 50 years. This fits in with the African Union’s development Agenda 2063.
It will attract about 500 participants, including Heads of States, namely Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal, H.E. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia and Chair of the APRM Forum of Heads of State, and Uhuru Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya; and former Heads of State including Mr. Thabo Mbeki, former President of Republic of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria, and H.E. Benjamin Mkapa, Former President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
Other dignitaries include Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Chair of the African Union Commission, Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations; Oby Ezekwesili, Former Minister of Education of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Former Vice-President for Africa, World Bank; Mukhtar Diop, Vice President for Africa of the World Bank and Dr Vartan Gregorian, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Higher education is now widely recognized as critical to promoting faster technological growth, value addition to raw materials and natural resources, and to improving countries’ ability to maximise economic output. The sector plays an integral role in the African Union development agenda, whose theme is the “Africa We Want in 2063”.
Issues such as declining revenues of institutions of higher learning; meeting the increasing demands for higher education; poor infrastructure; inadequate staffing; insufficient research; outdated curricula and poor regulatory regimes in the sector, will be on agenda.
“Over the past few years, as we consulted with many of the continent’s leading educators about the challenges facing higher education, it became clear that there is a need for such a summit a need to engage and in some instances re-evaluate,” says Dr Tendai Murisa, Executive Director, TrustAfrica.
The summit will also be attended by African ministers (Education, Finance and Science and Technology); administrators of institutions of higher learning; scholars; the business community; representatives of academic and non-academic unions; and students.
For more information go to http://summit.trustafrica.org