The oldest private higher education institutions on the continent are religious institutions of mainly Christian or Islamic origin that assumed the responsibilities for providing education long before modern secular education was introduced.
Gradually, religious institutions extended their educational delivery beyond religious subjects, also serving the needs of people who were not affiliated to the founding churches. Governments viewed this as a positive move as they could see the advantage of educating local elites who could fill middle-level posts in public establishments.
Africa’s colonial and postcolonial history, therefore, has had its footprints in the establishment of private universities.
Following independence in the 1960s, Africa’s higher education system was influenced by the ‘public-good’ model in which public universities were conceived as national symbols and drivers of national development and modernisation with little room for private operators.
This trend began to change in the 1970s and 1980s due to internal and external pressures such as insufficient growth and inaccessibility of the public sector, tremendous growth of the student population at the lower levels of education, instability in public universities, and the ascendance of a neoliberal ideology that necessitated the growth of private higher education on the continent.
The emergence and continued proliferation of the private higher education sector in Africa since the 1980s has brought about multiple profiles in its nature, growth and regulation. However, despite its phenomenal development, the sector continues to attract little attention as a subject of serious scholarship and investigation.
In the published book, Emerging Dynamics in the Provision of Private Higher Education in Africa, which we edited, the aim was to bridge this gap by mapping, analysing and documenting historical developments, policy and regulatory frameworks and key trends and contemporary themes in Africa’s emerging private higher education sector.
Private sector’s size
Despite outnumbering public institutions, the share of private higher education enrolment in Africa remains at 18%, far below the global average of 33%, indicating that African higher education remains a public enterprise.
A recent worrying trend within the sector is the dwindling participation rate in private higher education in some countries.
Challenges include negative perceptions of the private higher education sector, high tuition fees, a decline in the number of international students, poor-quality offerings and inflation increasing competition from the public sector, that are posing serious hindrances to the growth of the sector in countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia and Ghana.
Programme offerings and institutional typology
In most of Africa, private providers offer various programmes in the social sciences, humanities and arts with a particular preference for business and management-related courses, education and theology rather than science-related subjects.
The majority offer similar, less capital-intensive programmes and neglect the STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), vocational and agricultural subjects. Their growth is not always guided by sufficient programme and institutional diversification and differentiation.
Some countries allow private higher education institutions to offer all levels of higher education, but this is not the case in others. Most private institutions also do not participate extensively in meaningful research activities.
Private higher education contributions
Private higher education institutions have been a valuable addition to the African landscape, offering an alternative to the public sector.
Many countries would have found it difficult to respond to the ever-growing demand for higher education without the involvement of private higher education institutions that create access to students who could not obtain places at under-resourced public higher education institutions.
In many African countries, private higher education institutions serve ‘non-traditional students’ or students from under-represented groups, such as females and adults.
Female students in Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe make up about 50% of the student body. The figure is about 43% in Ghana. Female students often choose private institutions due to safety considerations, proximity, better opportunities to enter certain programmes, and better discipline.
Private higher education institutions create opportunities for those who used to travel outside their home countries in search of foreign educational qualifications, enabling governments to save or generate foreign exchange. In Ghana and Kenya, many private universities continue to attract international students, particularly from neighbouring countries.
In some countries, private higher education institutions are preferred also over public institutions due to their unique features such as the regular monitoring of student progress, less red tape, immunity from incessant strikes that plague public institutions, and improved opportunities for dialogue with students and staff.
The innovative and business orientation of a vibrant private sector could encourage healthy inter-sectoral competition.
Many public universities in Africa are currently introducing diversified fee-based and market-oriented programmes emulating the practices of the private sector.
Successful African private higher education institutions are also known for their strong commitment to community service and outreach programmes, including free professional services, contributions to charity, participation in environmental protection, feeding the homeless, offering capacity-building, training, donations and granting scholarships to financially challenged students.
Public policy toward private higher education
Legal provisions for operating private higher education are manifested in various forms across the continent. In terms of operational mandates, a single government authority may assume the majority of the accreditation and quality assurance roles in some countries such as Ethiopia, while a variety of bodies may be given shared and coordinated responsibilities, as is the case of Egypt and Ghana.
One special requirement in Ghana for newly established private tertiary education institutions is the need to be affiliated to a chartered (recognised) one, predominantly the public ones, for not less than 10 years, before it is granted its own Presidential charter. Recently, a law has been promulgated requiring all newly established private universities to become chartered within four years.
The majority of private higher education institutions on the continent rely on student tuition fees as a key source of their operating income, although some institutions also generate additional income from services rendered to students and the communities they serve.
Viewed as privately owned commercial entities, most private higher education institutions on the continent rarely receive government funding or any form of subsidy.
Students who enrol in private institutions are also not eligible for financial support from the government in countries like South Africa and Ethiopia, but Kenya allows private students to benefit from government loan schemes.
Gaps and challenges
Unlike public institutions, many African private higher education institutions struggle to achieve credibility and growth due to the sector’s recent entrance onto the landscape.
They have to deal with the negative effects of their purported profit motive, unfavourable public policies, and the individual behaviour of unscrupulous providers that are accused of repeatedly flouting government regulations, offering inferior tertiary education, enrolling poorly qualified students, and employing less qualified faculty and staff.
Another critical challenge is funding. The private sector’s excessive reliance on student fees not only jeopardises the very existence of the sector but limits investment in activities such as research that may be regarded as a luxury.
Regulatory impediments are a common feature of the African private higher education scene and a key challenge in many countries. The challenges include a lack of comprehensive policies on private higher education, prohibitive regulations, constantly changing requirements, uncertainty about procedures, delays and double standards in accreditation, and limited capacity to enforce rules and regulations. Many choose to argue that the private higher education sector in Africa is subjected to overregulation compared to other businesses.
The way forward
The tertiary age cohort in many African countries is growing and the demand for higher education will continue to rise in the coming decades. In this regard, our book recognises the central role of private higher education in Africa’s developmental agenda, in particular to meet its ambition to improve participation without necessarily expanding public budgets.
However, the way the government exercises its power remains a key factor in determining the success of the private higher education sector on the continent. The challenge lies in the degree of control exercised by the various organs of the state machinery to regulate this fast-expanding sub-sector.
Governments should be wary of the balance between their appetite for control and the institutional autonomy, support and academic freedom that higher education needs to survive and thrive.
On the part of private higher education institutions, it is essential to ensure that their possible commercial drive does not overshadow their educational purposes and that the sector is trusted and instils confidence.
Finally, researching private higher education and broadening the knowledge base about the sector through the active participation of policymakers, institutions, non-governmental organisations, researchers, and graduate students remain paramount.
Such efforts can play a significant role in transforming the sector into a field of serious enquiry and ensuring that the sector’s future directions are guided more by improved understanding than personal wishes, simplistic views, whims and traditional misconceptions.
Wondwosen Tamrat (PhD) is an associate professor of higher education and founding president of St Mary’s University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a collaborating scholar of the Programme for Research on Private Higher Education at the State University of New York at Albany, United States, and coordinator of the private higher education sub-cluster of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa. He may be reached at preswond@smuc.edu.et or wondwosen@gmail.com
Damtew Teferra is the founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of African Higher Education, professor of higher education and founding director of the International Network for Higher Education in Africa based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He facilitates the Continental Education Strategy for Africa – Higher Education Cluster spearheaded by the African Union Commission and coordinated by the Association of African Universities. He may be reached at teferra@ukzn.ac.za or teferra@bc.edu.
This is a commentary based on the book’s content.
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