Log on, Africa

Re your feature on private higher education in Africa (“A ‘teaching shop’ on every corner”, 22 October). As a veteran educationalist in Africa, I fully agree with the statement by Adebayo Olukoshi that higher education “has to reclaim its rightful role in ‘the mobilisation of citizenship which we require for the renaissance of the continent’”.

Across Africa, governments are unable to provide higher education, hence the private sector is coming in, any way it can. There are weak regulations that are open to corruption. Legislation needs to be updated regularly to cope with problems of quality, but it is not done. Too easily charters are given to universities that do not deserve the title. And bogus institutions are a problem.

We at the Virtual University of Uganda, the first fully online university in sub-Saharan Africa, offer online education of the highest international standards. The Uganda National Council for Higher Education was bold when it granted us a licence to operate a virtual university. Could this not be emulated to reduce the pressure of the number of students wanting to join higher education institutions?

Michel Lejeune
Vice-chancellor
Virtual University of Uganda

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