Reforming African Universities for development relevance: what will it take?

The outcry for reform in African universities over the last two decades has been epic; and the extent of reforms that have been executed on the continent is varied leaving islands of success in teaching, research and innovation. What has been clear is the fact that many education commentators wish African universities to transition from the current trend of teaching universities to focus on research and innovations that address the ‘common man’s problems’ whilst positioning Africa on the global competitive edge. In this editorial we opine that universities reforms in Africa are critical but it takes more than just a university to reform. Reform is a socio-political context; it requires political commitment and leadership at continental and national level including trust and confidence in the research and innovation outputs from universities in Africa and setting and assigning universities clear development objectives that ought to be delivered and matching this with counterpart funding to facilitate delivery. Further, supporting education value chain that integrate technical vocational education and training (TVET) institutions aids in technology generation, translation and transfer. Importantly, strengthening doctoral training in Africa is urgent and critical for generation of innovations and leadership to support the continent transformation. Clearly, the reform process is complex and as such, it takes a systematic process requiring a major diagnostic and surgery of all processes and practices in the universities and no quick fix will solve the problem.