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Celebrating Africa Day during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of African Universities as Agents of Solidarity and Development in Post-Pandemic Africa

19 May 2020 | Story Cornelius Hagenmeier and Prof Colin Chasi | Photo Supplied

Cornelius Hagenmeier_ read more — Cornelius Hagenmeier.

Africa is defined by colonial borders, within which states attempt to build viable systems. Universities are a significant part of the national innovation systems that seek to change the socio-economic and other fortunes of the many poor and marginalised Africans. As Africa approaches the celebrations on the occasion of the 57th anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the COVID-19 crisis reveals – if we are willing to see it – that there is a need to focus much attention on intra-Africa internationalisation programmes for African higher education.

Because national socio-economic and health systems are often inadequate, Covid-19 protects unprecedented human and social suffering for many on the continent. To try and stave off this harm throughout the continent, borders have been closed and economies have been stifled. Except for the ‘repatriation’ of citizens, international travel has become all but impossible. Africans have, as never before, been bound to colonial boundaries, which are preserved according to a principle called uti-possidetis. This principle was reluctantly ratified by members of the Organisation of African Union (OAU) in July 1964. This ratification was reluctant, because leaders recognised that African boundaries were arbitrarily and chaotically imposed in the scramble for Africa. These borders were not developed by internal historical processes. In consequence, they divide kith from kin, limiting trade and commerce across the continent. Nevertheless, leaders adopted the uti-possidetis principle for fear that allowing the contestation of these borders would likely yield territorial wars that would bring heightened misery without end.

State power in Africa today is exercised within postcolonial borders that continue to be weak and porous. It is also exercised by states that are themselves generally weak. These states take their health-promoting actions to neighbourhoods that often have inadequate socio-economic and health systems for combating COVID-19. They entrap us in compartments that produce lives that are short and brutish. We would do well to ask how we can decolonise our borders in ways that set us free to change socio-economic fortunes.

Within the confining arrangements of state power, the health threat of the COVID-19 pandemic has been met with almost every African country adopting stringent health precautions, often resulting in sudden, sharp economic declines. With this, the livelihoods of millions are in jeopardy. African higher education has not escaped the resultant challenges.

The higher education sector is struggling to adapt. To be sure, in many ways, it is producing mighty work. Many books and journals will write about how systems moved significant aspects of teaching and learning online, often with great success, sometimes with great frustrations. At the same time, Africans rightly expect higher education systems to contribute to finding immediate responses to the pandemic threat. In many cases, universities are assisting by researching the coronavirus genome, developing effective and cost-efficient necessities such as personal protective equipment and ventilators; or by researching effective vaccines, medication, and public-health interventions. However, it is difficult to find excellent examples of how these steps are changing national narratives, particularly those that bind us to colonial miseries.

The African Union (AU), which is the successor to the OAU, is trying to build multilateral efforts. It has developed an ‘Africa Joint Continental Strategy for COVID-19 Outbreak’ and established an ‘Africa Taskforce for Coronavirus’. These efforts seek to foster collaboration between multilateral stakeholders. For the African Union recognises that to adequately address the crises occasioned by COVID-19, it is necessary that member states, African Union agencies, the World Health Organization and other partners work synergistically to avoid duplication and to maximise efficiencies, given that resources are extremely constrained.

A central tenet of the OAU is African solidarity. Member states have undertaken to coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for the people of Africa. It is encouraging that the AU’s Chairperson, President Cyril Ramaphosa, refers to pan-Africanist ideas when he calls for the ‘strengthening of the bonds of solidarity that exist between us as Africans’ (24 April 2020). Ideas of African togetherness, underpinned by the philosophy of ubuntu, must inspire African solidarity. They are more relevant than ever before.

It is vital that we think, beyond this COVID-19 crisis, of how long-run coordination of African higher education institutions in Africa must produce continent-wide systems of innovation that take us out of perpetual poverty, disease, and unnecessary deaths.

African higher education is struggling to define its place in the rapidly changing realities of the continent. Many institutions are driven to merely concentrate on how they will survive, or on how sprouting areas of excellence will make it through adverse financial conditions that emerge.

Africa is at a critical juncture. How we make it through COVID-19 and what we learn from doing so, will determine whether Africa unites as we shape the post-COVID-19 future.

_{Prof Colin Chasi. (Photo: Anja Aucamp.)}

Periods of great strife, devastation, and hardship are opportunities for radical renewal and quantum leaps in development. But we must have the courage to take those opportunities. If we have the courage to unleash our universities in the kinds of continent-changing work that is needed, the fortunes of African countries are, after all, tied together (no matter what colonial boundaries and divisions may say).

The decisions that will be made during and in the wake of the pandemic will determine whether the crisis and its aftermath will allow the continent to focus on becoming a prospering, united world power, or whether national egoism (tied to colonial histories) will prevail and hinder sustainable development.

How African higher education evolves in the post-pandemic world will largely depend on whether universities will be able to embrace the interconnectedness and interdependency of Africa’s social and economic realities. African higher education systems must escape the temptation to respond to immediate challenges in isolation. These times should teach us that when your neighbour catches the flu, your home economy suffers too. However, where people should observe social distancing to overcome the flu, economies must reach across borders if they are to flourish in markets large enough to truly impart value to ideas, services, and goods.

Higher education should serve African people by advancing social transformation and development through collaboration in skills development and research. Through intra-African partnerships and collaborations, African universities can make significant contributions to finding responses to the peculiar public health and medical challenges of emerging African societies and shaping a prosperous and unified post-pandemic Africa.

Many African higher education institutions excel in specific fields. The quality of programmes and research is not uniform throughout institutions. We need to lead the world in recognising each other’s strengths to produce intensified collaboration in capacity development and research. In doing this work, higher education will go far beyond repeating and mimicking colonial patterns, or if you wish, it will go beyond colonial boundaries. It will be a key driver in finding responses to the cross-cutting challenges that need to be resolved to fulfil the aspirations of Africa’s Agenda 2063. Indeed, by leveraging the complementary strengths of its higher education institutions, the continental higher education system could become a critical force shaping a positive post-COVID-19 African reality. Pan-Africanism in higher education should not be limited to isolated initiatives such as the development of the Pan-African University, but should establish a framework for sustained continental academic collaboration.

As African universities prepare to contribute to the celebrations for the 57th anniversary of the OAU, they should consider how they can strengthen intra-African collaboration to achieve the pan-African vision of ‘an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens, representing a dynamic force in the international arena’ (AU vision statement).

Fortunately, there are excellent points of departure. Laudable programmes such as the Association of African Universities staff exchange programme already exist, yet much of the intra-African higher education collaboration is still financed by foreign donors. The African Union, African governments, and the African higher education sector influence the structure of those programmes through consultation, and consequently minimise the risk of them responding to the international perceptions of African needs rather than real African needs. This should be strengthened, not least through committing equity to the formulation of joint programmes.

For the brave new world in which we must make space for our children to thrive, brave new African frameworks for collaboration should be developed. Energy must be invested in removing obstacles to African higher education collaboration. Some of the things that need to be done are well known. Practical measures could include strengthening the harmonisation of African higher education accreditation and quality assurance mechanisms, establishing an African credit recognition and transfer system, and fast-tracking the harmonisation of African higher education programmes. The celebration of 2020 Africa Day should encourage African higher education to work towards devising a strategy for strengthening collaboration, which would assist the continent in shaping a positive post-COVID-19 African reality. If this can be achieved, African universities could emerge as genuine agents of achieving solidarity and development in post-pandemic Africa, and thus realising the ideals of the OAU.

News Archive

During 2011: Achievements at the UFS

2011-12-01

Sarah Shannon

Dr Alex Amtaika, Department of Political Science

During a conference at Khon Kaen University in Thailand, Dr Alexius Amtaika from our Department of Political Science was elected as Executive Director and Convener of the International Committee of Scholars of Local Government. This honour was bestowed upon Dr Alexius during the first International Conference on Local Government at Khon Kaen University.

Sarah Shannon

We all have heard stories about inspirational people, who defy the odds, fight circumstance every day and never give up. Sarah Shannon has cerebral palsy but has never stopped dreaming and achieving them.

Sarah is also a competitive swimmer, and is currently ranked seventh in the world in her class of disabilities.

She is currently completing her postgraduate certificate in Education, Foundation Phrase, through Unisa. She is also studying Sociology at our university.

DW Bester and Sannah Mokone, Rhodes Scholars

Of the four open Rhodes Scholarships available to students from all universities in Southern Africa, two of our students won these prestigious scholarships. DW Bester, B.Sc. Hons. Actuarial Science student, and Sannah Mokone, BPub-cum laude student, joined Oxford University in the United Kingdom in September 2011 to further their studies.

The Rhodes Scholarships, arguably one of the most prestigious scholarships in the world, were founded in 1903 in the will of Cecil John Rhodes and cover the full costs of study at Oxford University.

While academic excellence is a pre-condition for consideration for the Rhodes Scholarship, these scholarships are unique in that Rhodes Scholars are outstanding young students who excel academically, but very importantly, demonstrate leadership, are committed to making a difference in the world, and have the energy to fulfill their ambitions.

Dr Derik Coetzee, Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences

When you suddenly receive a call during a World Cup year and requested to come and assist in leading the Springboks, then you have to know, you have something to offer. This is what happened to Dr Derik Coetzee from our Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences. This year he once again became involved in the Springbok rugby team, after he had been die Bokke’s conditioning trainer from 2004 to 2007.

His primary task as conditioning head was to help in seeing to it that the Springboks reached their best level of play – psychologically, physically an emotionally. Amongst others, his duties included the optimisation of the players’ muscle and explosive power, speed, anaerobic ability and technical skills.

Jefferson J Dirks-Korkee en Mart Kotzé

Jefferson J Dirks-Korkee, from Willowmore in the Eastern Cape, and Mart Kotzé from Bloemfontein, recently made history by being the first students from our Department of Drama and Theatre Arts featuring in an Afrikaans South African film Skoonheid, the first ever to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

The movie won the Queer Palm Award at the 2011 Cannes International Film Festival, where Robert de Niro was the chairperson of the panel of judges.

Prof. Muriel Meiring, Department of Haematology and Cell Biology

Prof. Muriel Meiring, Specialist Scientist in our Department of Haematology and Cell Biology, is responsible for establishing the Specialised Haemostasis Laboratory at our university and the Universitas Hospital’s National Health Laboratory Service. She established this centre as a reference centre for Von Willebrand disease, a genetic bleeding disorder, in South Africa. This laboratory is internationally recognised for their research and as a reference laboratory.

Prof. Meiring develops and tests antithrombotic (anti-clotting) agents and her long list of publications, research awards and congress presentations has earned her a nomination for the Department of Science and Technology’s Distinguished Woman Scientist Award. She was one of two scientists of the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) to receive the award – Prof. Meiring being the only woman from our university.

Medical facilities from all over the country make use of her and her team’s expertise when testing for blood disorders and she hopes to expand the centre even further.

Melinda Jonker

Melinda Jonker, one of our third-year financial economic students, won the overall national competition of the prestigious Traders Trophy competition at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

The competition, sponsored by Nedbank Capital and Oxyor in Amsterdam, requires participants to trade actual JSE-listed shares against one another on a simulated platform. The winner is determined not only by the highest profit, but also by the technique used throughout the trading session.

Christopher Diab, also a student from our Department of Economics, won the regional UFS competition.

ASSAf members

Seven of our academic colleagues have been elected as members of the Academy for Science of South Africa (ASSAf). They are Proff. Hendrik Swart, Physics; André Roodt, Chemistry; Zakkie Pretorius, Plant Sciences; Max Finkelstein, Mathematics; James du Preez, Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology; Maryke Labuschagne, Plant Breeding; and Neil Roos from our Postgraduate School.

Due main objective of the Academy is to promote and apply scientific thought in the service of the society, in order to determine the quality and scope of the role that the Academy can plays in the country’s life and progress, and eventually apply it

Other colleagues who are currently members of ASSAf include Proff. Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector; Johan Henning, Dean: Faculty of Law; and Frans Swanepoel, Senior Director: Research Development.

Samantha Renda-Dollman

Samantha Renda-Dollman, a BSc (Zoology) student on our Qwaqwa Campus, has obtained 19 distinctions out of the 22 modules she has written since 2009.

Her hard work earned Samantha the prestigious Dux Student award of our 2011 Annual Student Affairs Excellence Awards, held at our Qwaqwa Campus. This makes her the best overall academic performer of the entire student body on this campus.

Jaco Griessel

Jaco Griessel, an Honours student at our Odeion School for Music, received a prestigious Mandela Rhodes bursary for 2012 to study towards his Master’s degree next year.

Jaco, who is currently busy with his BMus Honours degree, is a performer par excellence, with many achievements to his name. In 2010, he received the Fanie Beetge Prize for the best undergraduate student in Systematic Music Studies. A year before, he received the same prize as best undergraduate student in Historic Music Studies. He shall continue his Master’s degree with Music Composition as field of specialisation at our university in 2012.

Prof. Helena van Zyl, UFS School of Management

Prof. Helena van Zyl, Director of the UFS Business School, was elected as President of the South African Association of Business Schools (SABSA). Since the beginning of 2010 she has been acting as president. Prof. Van Zyl is the first woman to occupy this position and also the first woman who is currently heading a business school in South Africa. She will serve SABSA as the president for the next two years.

Prof. Zakkie Pretorius, Department of Plant Sciences

Research by Prof. Zakkie Pretorius from our Department of Plant Sciences, has become part of Phase II of a mayor global project to combat deadly strains of a wheat pathogen that poses a threat to global food security.

Prof. Pretorius focuses on the identification of resistance in wheat to the stem rust disease and will assist breeders and geneticists in the accurate phenotyping of international breeding lines and mapping populations. In addition, Prof. Pretorius will support scientists from Africa with critical skills development through training programmes.

The Ug99 strain was discovered in Kenya in 1998, but are now also threatening major wheat-growing areas of Southern and Eastern Africa, the Central Asian Republics, the Caucasus, the Indian subcontinent, South America, Australia and North America.

Prof. Danie Strauss, research fellow in the Faculty of Humanities

Prof. Danie Strauss, a research fellow in our Faculty of the Humanities, won the Dooyeweerd Prize from the Board of the Association for Reformational Philosophies in Amsterdam. Prof. Strauss, former Dean of our Faculty of the Humanities and head of our Department of Philosophy, won the prize for his book Philosophy: Discipline of the Disciplines. The prize is awarded for work in the field of systematic philosophy.

Nida Jooste and Ryan Lamb, Abe Bailey Travel Bursary holders

Nida Jooste and Ryan Lamb are two of the proud recipients of Abe Bailey Travel Bursaries. Both students are academic achievers, but also excel in other fields. This is what set them apart from the rest of the applicants for the bursaries.

Ryan (23), a Medical Physics Honours student at our Faculty of Health Sciences, received the Senate’s Medal for the best Bachelor’s Degree student at the UFS. He was one of 100 students at the Brightest Young Minds Summit this year and was one of the 2008 delegates to the World Youth Forum, hosted by the International Association for Poetry and Solidarity in Italy.

Nida (21) is a very familiar face on our Bloemfontein Campus, as she served as the Deputy Chairperson of our Interim Student Council in 2011.

Loerie Award for Tarran Jacobs, Elizabeth Forson and Mafohlela Mahlatsi

The creativity of a group of students from our university was rewarded with a bronze Loerie Award after they won an internal competition. Tarran Jacobs, Elizabeth Forson and Mafohlela Mahlatsi, all third-year Marketing Communication students, won the award for an advertisement they designed for Cansa.

Each year, the third-year Marketing Communication students of our Department of Communication Science have the opportunity to flex their creative muscles in the Copy-writing class. The challenge is to design two advertisements for any charity organisation by applying the knowledge they gained from the subject in a practical way. The top three groups are then entered for the Loerie and Pendoring awards – two of the most prestigious awards in the South African advertising industry.

The top three groups designed advertisements for Cansa, the South African Blood Service and Crime Line.

Hendrik Kruger and Anke Malan walk away with awards at Pfizer UKZN Young Health Scientists Research Symposium

Two students in our Faculty of Health Sciences won awards at a Pfizer UKZN Young Health Scientists Research Symposium.

Hendrik Kruger, a medical student, represented his group, which won the clinical category with the paper “Injury patterns of occupants surviving motor vehicle accidents in the Free State”. This presentation was based on a study which is the first of its kind in South Africa.

The group with Anke Malan from our Department of Nutrition and Dietetics as presenter received the prize in the community-based category with the presentation ’Knowledge, practices and perceptions of undergraduate students at the UFS regarding the risk factors of osteoporoses’. Anke’s team was also nominated as the overall winner of the symposium. Presentations were delivered in three categories, namely clinical, community-based and laboratory research.

Prof. Louis Scott, Department of Plant Sciences

Prof. Louis Scott from our Department of Plant Sciences was formally rewarded the Fellowship of Royal Society of South Africa (RSSA).

Prof. Scott is an internationally recognised Palinologist at our university and a B-rated scientist.

Fellows of the RSSA are considered to be part of a very elite group of South African scientists who have achieved international acknowledgment.

Prof. Aldo Stroebel, International Academic Programmes in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor

Prof. Aldo Stroebel has been elected as a Founding Member of the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS).

He is Associate Professor in our Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Rural Development and Extension, as well as the Director of International Academic Programmes in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor.

The Young Academy has as its objectives to represent young scientists in advising the government on science and technology policy and human resource development. In addition, they will prepare the SAYAS to join the Global Young Academy (GYA) to engage with high-level international bodies, including the World Economic Forum.

Prof. Lodewyk Kock, Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology

Prof. Lodewyk Kock was a sought-after keynote speaker at various conferences and seminars around the globe on our nanotechnology breakthrough research.

He delivered keynote lectures at international conferences of repute in the USA, China and Greece. In the USA he delivered a the keynote address at the Conference & Exhibition on Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs (Pharma-2011), held in Baltimore, and was a keynote speaker at the 2nd World Congress on Biotechnology in Philadelphia. He was also invited to present various lectures abroad.

He posted two video lectures in e-conference format on his research on the web page of the journal Translational Biomedicine. He was also invited by the International Society of Translational Medicine (ISTM) to head their “Molecular Imaging” Division.

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