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"'Educational exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication can to the humanizing of international relations'. Senator William Fulbright As the debate on internationalisation of higher education grows stronger, so does the interest in mobility not only of students, but also of staff. This is likely to intensify in the coming months, as the European Commission's new Erasmus+ programme, starting in 2014, promises more opportunities and funding for higher education and teaching staff to study, train and work in another country. Indeed, higher education staff will account for a significant percentage of the 1 million beneficiaries of a mobility period funded by the programme between 2014 and 2020. Staff mobility is seen as a vital and often cost-effective means of creating 'internationalisation at home' - enabling students to (in)directly experience another higher education culture on site. It is also widely believed that staff mobility has an additional value in acting as a catalyst for student mobility. "

"The African Higher Education Summit to be held in March 2015 in Senegal will provide an energising space for African political and university leaders, experts and organisations - and friends of the continent - to revitalise interest in the sector and talk about the future. "This is a call to action. The summit will mark the beginning of a new agenda for higher education in Africa," says Dr Tendai Murisa, director of the summit's lead organiser TrustAfrica. "At TrustAfrica we do not claim expertise on higher education. We claim expertise in bringing Africans and friends of Africa to a space where they can talk," Murisa says. In this case, it will be a gathering of all higher education actors."

The key messages in this brief are as follows: 1) Engineering can help Africa unlock its huge potential for economic growth and development and make faster progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. 2) However, there is a serious lack of engineering capacity in Africa and heavy reliance on imported expertise in engineering. 3) Higher education institutions need to change their approach to teaching engineering so that graduates are creative problem-solvers. Engineering courses also need to be oriented towards market and development needs. 4) Women are under-represented in engineering education, constituting less than 10 percent of the student population in Ghana, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe in 2010. 5) Few African countries have established a robust accreditation system. In addition to improving national accreditation, regional accreditation of engineering professionals should be encouraged so that engineers have greater mobility within Africa. 6) A proposed World Bank initiative, the Partnership for Skills in Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (PASET) will build capacity for technical, vocational and higher education in African countries.

"Reforming agricultural education curriculum in tandem with technological advancement and development demands remains one of the key challenges facing African universities. Fara-Web Bureaucratic bottlenecks and inadequate resources have conspired to slow down the pace of curriculum reform in the midst of rapid technological advances especially in the field of agriculture.The cumulative effect of the dislocation between agricultural education curriculum in African universities and practical realities could have a negative impact on development in the continent. Hence, the African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE) led a side event on Curriculum reforms during the FARA Science week held from 15 - 20 July 2013 in Accra, Ghana. The main objective of the session was to identify bottlenecks to curricula reform and agree on key steps to undertake to reform TAE curricula in sub-Saharan Africa. The session was chaired by ANAFE's Board Chair, Prof. John D. Saka."

"IIEP-UNESCO has wrapped up a full week at this year's annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) held in Vancouver, Canada from 6-10 March. A delegation of nine IIEP experts chaired five panels and participated in several other sessions on range of issues related to educational planning during crises, quality assurance in higher education, education financing and the role of learning assessment data in policy-making."

Le présent document est une adaptation du manuel AISHE (Auditing Instrument for Sustainability in Higher Education, DHO 2001). Il comprend une description du concept AIFSHE et présente les 20 critères du processus d'évaluation de l'AIFSHE.

"A global challenge in knowledge transfer to meet world demands for food security and sustainability Organised by Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza - International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (IAMZ-CIHEAM) Centre for Agricultural Research. Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA-ATK) Union for the Mediterranean Association for European Life Science Universities (ICA) Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA)"

"Reforming agricultural education curriculum in tandem with technological advancement and development demands remains one of the key challenges facing African universities. Bureaucratic bottlenecks and inadequate resources have conspired to slow down the pace of curriculum reform in the midst of rapid technological advances especially in the field of agriculture.The cumulative effect of the dislocation between agricultural education curriculum in African universities and practical realities could have a negative impact on development in the continent."

The Government of the Republic of Zambia has received a loan from the African Development Fund to finance the Support to Science and Technology Education Project (SSTEP). The principle objectives of the Project are to:  Increase access and improve quality and equity of science and technology in the three Higher Education institutions, namely University of Zambia, Copperbelt University and Mulungushi University, and  Increase access and improve quality and equity of science and technology in the Trades Training Institutions, namely Northern Technical College, Nkumbi International College, Choma Trades Training Institute and Lukashya Trades Training Institute, in line with Zambia's Vision 2030 priorities on Skills Development.

The Agropolis Foundation in France engages in research on food and crop systems in the world's North and South. The present call for proposals will fund training and higher education in the theme "agronomy for sustainable development." The lead proponent should be from a research unit belonging to the Foundation's scientific network (Labex Agro).

"The third Call for Proposals under the Intra-ACP academic mobility scheme has been launched, with a deadline of 10 June 2013. The intra-ACP academic mobility scheme supports higher education cooperation between countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP). The scheme aims to promote sustainable development and poverty alleviation by increasing the availability of trained and qualified high-level professional manpower in the ACP countries. The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) is responsible for the managing this programme, with the support of the African Union (AU) and the Africa Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), and under the supervision of the Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation-EuropeAid. More… "

Conference theme: African Higher Education Week: Transforming Tertiary Agricultural Education - a Platform for the Way Forward. -- 19-25 July, 2014, Hotel Grand VIP, Maputo, Mozambique.

The AgIM (Agriculture Information Management and Precision Farming) has released its fourth newsletter covering the second semester of 2015. AgIM project is co-ordinated by NOVA Information Management School and is designed to reinforce and elevate the EU-ACP partnership in the filed of higher education through the creation of an inter-institutional network, rooted in a long-term sustainable strategy, to promote the academic excellence in agriculture education in Mozambique and Cape Verde.

This first volume of the report of the Feasibility Study of the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) focuses on the development and implementation of the Study and the lessons learnt through that process.

"The next EuroAfrica-ICT/P8 Regional Workshop on 'Awareness & Training on Africa-­EU ICT research opportunities' is taking place on June 25-26, 2013 at the Terrou-bi Hotel in Dakar, Senegal. The event is organised under the aegis of the European Commission (DG CONNECT) by the EuroAfrica-ICT/P8 Project (ESMT, Senegal with the support of Sigma Orionis, France and CSIR, South Africa) and in collaboration with the ERAfrica Project (IRD on behalf of the French Ministry for Higher Education and Research, MESR)."

African Higher Education Week Celebrating the Contribution of Universities & Partners to Africa's Agricultural Development Please click here to download the Concept Note for the 4th Biennial Conference.The five day conference will be held at the Joaquim Chissano International Conference Centre in Maputo, Mozambique, from 21st to 25th July 2014. The meeting will be co-organized by RUFORUM Secretariat, Government of Mozambique (led by Eduardo Mondlane University and IIAM) and CCARDESA. The Call for Papers will be issued shortly with guidelines on how to submit papers for this conference."

The USAID-supported East Africa Trade and Investment Hub, Syngenta and the Inter Region Economic Network (IREN), have launched the second edition of the agribusiness competition dubbed "Young Innovators in Agribusiness Competition." This follows last year's successful Agribusiness competition that attracted over 800 participants from sub-Saharan Africa. Out of the 35 youth finalists, ten have gone on to win other prizes in the energy and agribusiness sectors; ten have expanded and retained their agro-related enterprises and 15 are employed or pursuing higher education. This year's competition is open to East African youth aged 18-35 years, who reside in the East African Community, Ethiopia, Seychelles, Mauritius or Madagascar, and have a start-up or small and medium sized enterprise (SME) involved in the agricultural value chain.

"TVET experts from the European Union met in Brussels on 17 November to discuss the preliminary findings of a study on the Internationalization of TVET in EU countries, and the European Commission's role in this. The purpose of the study is to map policies and practices from the EU, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), Australia and five International Organizations that support international cooperation in TVET, including UNESCO. A set of recommendations for future actions at the European and national levels will be included in the study's final report. UNESCO was represented at the meeting by Katerina Ananiadou, programme specialist at UNESCO-UNEVOC. The study was commissioned by the Directorate-General for Education and Culture and carried out by International http://www.icfi.com. The Commission and the contractors gathered feedback on the preliminary findings from national and international experts. Their feedback will be incorporated in the final version of the study, which is due to be published in December 2014."