Envisioning the future of the African University: Needed reform, and adjustments to respond to the emerging challenges

The paper shares the author’s perspective on the future of African higher education through a university lens. It identifies global trends and regional agenda that will influence change within the African university systems in the next decade. The paper is divided into eight (8) sections as follows: Section 1 introduces the background and purpose of the paper and its organization. Section 2 reviews the historical developments that influenced the emergence of the Multiversity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the western world, especially the United States and Europe; and the implications for the reforms of university systems in the twenty first century. Section 3 reflects on the current global trends affecting the university governance, and driving change by reviewing a plethora of models of governance, especially the Anglo-Saxon, Homboldtian, Napoleonic, and Japanese models. Section 4 describes the role of university innovation and entrepreneurship in the fulfillment of the ‘third mission’ besides university core business of teaching and research. Section 5 covers the integration of technology in learning and transitioning of universities to Education 4.0 in order to serve the unfolding Fourth Industrial Revolution. Section 6 highlights the role of academic rankings in measuring success and fueling reputational competition; thus, leading to improvement in research output and impact, and influencing strategic choices in higher education globally. Section 7 reflects on the causes of stagnation of African higher education in comparison to BRICs’ explosive expansion in the last two decades, and proposes strategies for closing the gap in terms of graduate enrollment ratios and differentiation. Conclusions and key recommendations for reforms in African university are made in Section 8 and include massification of African higher education sector through cost-sharing, differentiation and vocationalization; less government regulation and more autonomy to universities; corporatization of management to improve academic leadership; cultivation of innovation and entrepreneurialism; integration of technology, and transitioning to Education 4.0 in order to serve African Agenda 2063 and Fourth Industrial Revolution. Key words: Africa, Higher Education, transformative change