PANGeA: a fresh boost for research and education in Africa

The Partnership for Africa's Next Generation of Academics (PANGeA) is a way for Africa to revive its ailing higher education sector. PANGeA aims to develop research capacity, build strong research networks and improve academic mobility on the continent. So far, eight African universities are members, among them the University of Botswana, the University of Dar es Salaam, the University of Malawi, the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and Makerere University in Uganda. They hope to establish joint doctoral degrees in an attempt to minimize the brain drain which has severely affected the continent's education sector.

In Uganda, as in many African countries, research departments are not well funded nor are they viewed as a priority. As a member of PANGeA, Makerere University, which is the country's oldest university, hopes that the newly-launched program will attract young academics. At the launching ceremony of the new five-year program, PANGeA 's chairman Edward Kirumira spoke of the challenge faced by a number of universities "that you find departments that are almost closing because the professors there are retired or are about to retire and there are no new young people coming up. The partnership provides a network that they can use to come up with huge research projects, but which also mentors them to become the next academic administrators," he said.

The brain drain remains Africa's biggest challenge. Nearly all social service sectors are affected as many young and highly qualified people continue to leave their countries in search of better and more lucrative opportunities abroad. Kirumira hopes that the new program at Makerere University will help put an end to this practice. "PANGeA is emphasizing training on the continent so that the students train within the environment in which they are going to operate. When we train our staff from here, then we can build the capacity of the training environment," he said.

The project is funded by international bodies. Michael Hannsler of the German Gerda Henkel Foundation, which is one of the funders, told DW that the program has been designed to address the needs of individual universities, "It will focus on the development of research and management capacity through broad-based research and scholarship support on each of the PANGeA partner campuses throughout Africa," he said. 

But foreign funding alone may not be the solution to the challenge facing Africa's higher education sector. Bruce Kabagambe, a researcher at the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), thinks that the Ugandan government should also seriously consider funding programs aimed at boosting the workforce. MISR has a role to play here, Kabagambe said, "Makerere University and the government of Uganda should take MISR to be an entity that will contribute in accelerating Uganda's growth to a middle income country, Both the university and the government need to put in local resources so that MISR can produce better, because human capital development is a critical factor in the development of Uganda as a country."

The high levels of unemployment in countries like Uganda have been blamed on poor education systems. It is hoped that programs like PANGeA will, in the long run, contribute to the reduction of youth unemployment.

Alex Gitta contributed to this article