News & Events

Rising Opportunities in Africa?

Countries across Africa are seeking to expand higher education, and that will engender a massive need for Ph.D.s, reports Damtew Teferra, a professor at the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, at Inside Higher Ed. And that, it seems to me, suggests opportunity for academics who want to use their research and teaching to advance international development as well as science.
 
"PhDs prepare the medical doctors for a healthy society; the engineers to build the roads, bridges, dams, hospitals and schools; the agriculturalists to ensure food security; the educators to shape the next generation of teachers, not to mention economists, lawyers, scientists, business specialists—all contributing to the development of a ′knowledge′ society," he writes. "My intention here is to unequivocally state that building PhD programs is not simply to encourage ′intellectual curiosity′ but to address a critical aspect of national development."
 
Countries including Nigeria, Ghana, and Ethiopia aim to produce thousands of Ph.D.s a year, he explains. South Africa, which already graduates some 1700 Ph.D.s annually, plans to increase that to 5000 in the next decade and a half.

So why is this good news? After all, Africa isn′t the first region to put in place a policy aimed at increasing the number of advanced-degreed scientists it produces as part of an economic growth initiative. These efforts often lead to overproduction of scholars who then end up underemployed.
 
What′s different in Africa is that training more Ph.D.-level scholars requires more Ph.D.-level scholars, who currently are in short supply in Africa. If provided with adequate resources, these new initiatives should quickly improve opportunities in Africa for Western-trained scholars.
 
Many African countries have long sent their best students abroad for graduate study in the hope, often futile, that they would return and use their skills and knowledge for the betterment of their native lands. Many of them find superior opportunities, higher incomes, and better living conditions in the foreign countries where they are trained. (These new African initiatives may provide opportunities for citizens of non-African countries as well, especially if institutions run programs in English or other world languages.)
 
In a global market that seems stuffed to the gills with talent, but with a widespread dearth of opportunity, we welcome jobs for scholars wherever they may be. China is currently working hard—with considerable success—to lure home high-quality scientists trained and working in other countries. India, too, has greatly increased the scientific opportunities it can offer returning Indian nationals. Whether African nations will have the means and motivation to do likewise remains to be seen. They will need to provide jobs for their returning citizens that can compete with jobs overseas, with real opportunities to use their skills.