Don Wants World Class Curricula In African ‘Varsities

The Secretary-General, Association of African Universities (AAU), Prof. Olugbemiro Jegede wants African Universities to tailor their curricula to suit the labour market.

Jegede told newsmen in Lagos yesterday that this would ensure the suitability of African graduates for available world market.

Jegede, the immediate past Vice-Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), said the issue of curricula and the growing graduate unemployment called for immediate action to move the continent to the next level.

“At the moment, what is happening in many of the African Universities is that we are using yesterday’s curricula to teach tomorrow’s people and this is not right.

“What we need is to change the curricular and ensure that it is constantly reviewed,” he said.

Jegede expressed the need for administrative heads of African universities to seek means of developing their infrastructures in order to improve their rankings among the world best universities.

Jegede said that the development of the economy of any nation was largely dependent on the production of relevant, employable people from the higher education sector.

He said it would be difficult for the higher education sector to key into economic and other development of any country without access to high profile research and dissertation works.

He said in as much as African Universities were striving to move forward, a lot still needed to be done to realise the set goals of the various education sectors.

“We do not have to wait for a thousand years to be where we are aspiring to be,” Jegede said.

Our correspondent reports that the AAU was set up by the African Union as the mouth piece of the AU on higher education and universities in Africa.

The association was saddled with the responsibility of networking for universities across the continent, as well as enforcing their level of capacity building.