NN39, October 2007
Best Practice in Education and Training: Hype or Hope?
Best Practice. The Africa Unit: UK-Africa Higher Education Institution Partnerships
By Myles Wickstead, Andy Cherry and Andrew Othieno, The Africa Unit, Association of Commonwealth Universities, London
KeywordsBest practice, UK-Africa Higher Education, Partnership
Summary
This article describes two of the key outputs of the Africa Unit (Association of Commonwealth Universities): One will be a database of UK-Africa partnerships. Another key output envisaged by March 2008 will be a ?Manual of Best Practices?.
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Partnerships are by definition a form of collaboration in which all parties hope to achieve goals beyond those which they could achieve individually. Partnerships do not have to be equal, but there must be a mutual respect and understanding of what each party contributes and the benefits that each brings and derives.
The Commission for Africa Report, published in March 2005, placed significant emphasis on Africa?s capacity-building needs, which led to the Gleneagles G8 commitment in mid-2005 of: ?Helping develop skilled professionals for Africa?s private and public sectors, through supporting networks of excellence between African?s and other countries? institutions of higher education and centres of excellence in science and technology institutions?. With funding from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the Office of Science and Innovation (OSI) - both now within the new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) - the Africa Unit (located in the Association of Commonwealth Universities) was set up to support and promote the development of partnerships between UK and African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as a means of helping to address Africa?s capacity deficit. Science and Technology (S&T) is one the vantage points through which the Africa Unit will enhance and facilitate UK-Africa HEI partnerships.
One of the key outputs from the Africa Unit will be a database of UK-Africa partnerships. The database will be a source of information for preparation of an extensive and detailed evidence-based guide to best practice in UK-Africa HE partnerships. Another key output envisaged by March 2008 will be a ?Manual of Best Practices?, which will be based on a literature review and practical examples of active partnerships. These examples will entail successful partnerships under the England/Africa Partnership (EAP) scheme funded by the former DfES, and the Development Partnerships in Higher Education (DelPHE) scheme supported by the Department for International Development (DFID).
The Manual is intended to serve as a tool for a European audience, with careful consideration being given to the perspective of both needs and challenges of Africa partners in UK-African partnerships. The main objective of the S&T sector of the Africa Unit is to promote partnerships in the same way, though from a different vantage point. In May 2007 the Unit submitted a four-year ?European Union-Africa? S&T cooperation proposal, and eventually received favourable evaluation. The Unit will coordinate the project on behalf of Government Office for Science.
Examples of case studies being used (specifically for the Manual) in their different partnership categories, are the Leicester University health partnership with Gondar University (Ethiopia), the Bradford University peace and conflict studies partnership with University of Jos (Nigeria), the Leeds Metropolitan University ICT partnership with University of Malawi, and the Greenwich University National Research Institute (NRI) agricultural partnership with the Makerere University Department of Agriculture (Uganda).
Thus far the outcomes of the studies above prove, in multi-faceted ways, that good partnerships tend to be those where the benefits are mutual and recognised as such. Successful partnerships tend to be driven by a strong and coherent commitment from the senior management team in the UK, especially during the initiation of the partnership process. The same commitment at African institutions, during the implementation stage of the partnership process has proved to be helpful. What is lacking however is an efficient evaluation process to identify failure and ascertain success.
Research is also showing that good partnership means recognising the enormously difficult challenges faced by most partner institutions - financial, technical, administrative - and helping them address those challenges. But it means recognising equally that they can benefit from building a relationship of trust and mutual support with African partners. For example, where better ? other than Africa ? to give young British academics experience in tropical medicine or agriculture? It is this sort of collaboration that is the hallmark of true partnership.
It is striking how some UK institutions do not recognise how much they can learn from much broader partnerships, preferring instead to see grant funding as a way of getting in a few more PhD students to study in the UK. This actually exacerbates the problem, robbing those countries in the short-term - which, regrettably, often turns into the long-term - of the talents and skills so crucial to promoting their economic well-being. However this trend can be averted by reversing brain drain from the continent.
The outputs described above remain work in progress. Research is focusing on challenges faced by institutions actively involved in a partnership, especially an understanding of the intricate details of the process of partnering itself, that is, initiation, implementation, evaluation, and prospects for a partnerships? long-term sustainability for capacity-building purposes. A clear understanding of specific academic, institutional, country, and regional needs has also proved to be helpful.
The main focus of the Africa Unit has been on HE and S&T, though there are clearly other important areas which could be covered. Health partnerships are one area; the Unit is already collaborating closely with the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET), and we eagerly await the Government?s response to the recommendations of the Crisp Report on developing health partnerships. There are other areas too; we know, for example, that one or two NGOs would be very interested in knowing which African HEIs have capacity (and are therefore potential partners) in other areas such as water and sanitation. Delving deep into these and other areas will require funding which goes beyond the current cut-off date of March 2008. On that note, to achieve specific goals in both HE and S&T the Unit is making commendable progress ? hoping to continue doing so through ?best practice? ? towards a partnership with the Association of Commonwealth Universities (AAU), which has just received a DFID grant to help establish a new programme of support for higher education in Africa, and other groups such as the Working Group for Higher Education (WGHE) in Accra, Ghana, and the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), Kampala, Uganda.
We would be happy to hear from those who think they may be able to contribute to the Manual of Best Practices based on their own experience or observation; and equally, in tandem with our mission to enhance and facilitate UK-Africa partnerships, we would be delighted to hear from those who think we might be able to offer useful advice in their own research or partnership endeavours.
Further reading
Atkinson, M. (2005) The development of an evaluation framework for partnership working. The Electronic Journal of Business Research Methodology, 3(1).
Child, J. and Faulkner, D. (1998) Strategies of Co-operation: Managing Alliances, Networks and Joint Ventures. Oxford; Oxford University Press.
Comm, C.L. and Mathaisel, D.F.X (2005), An Exploratory Study of Best Lean Sustainability Practices in Higher Education, Quality Assurance in Education vol. 13 no 3.
Evaluation Associates (2002), Evaluation of Collaboration In the Higher Education Sector. http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rdreports/2002/rd18_02/rd18_02a.doc (2 July 2007).
Tyers, H., Furniss, J. and Coulson (2005), 2005 And Beyond: How The European Higher Education Sector Can Make A Contribution To African Development. An article by the International Projects Office, University of Westminster.
Websites:
AAU - www.aau.org
ACU - www.acu.ac.uk
ADEA - www.adeanet.org
DelPHE - http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-delphe.htm
DfES - http://www.dfes.gov.uk/hegateway/
DFID - http://www.dfid.gov.uk/
HEFCE - http://www.hefce.ac.uk/
HESA - http://www.hesa.ac.uk/
HESA - http://www.sauvca.org.za/hesa/
UNESCO - www.unesco.org
WGHE - http://www.aau.org/wghe/index.htm
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