The UNESCO world conference on higher education has produced some interesting progress, especially in tackling African higher education.

There was a general offer of support to Africa from world education leaders, and a couple of major projects on the table.

These include a pan-African institution of university governance, to be based in Yaoundé, Cameroon, (press release) and an Afro-Brazilian university with eight campuses; five in Portuguese-speaking Africa, two in Asia and one in Brazil.

University World News has a good round up of the events relating to African higher education. Apparently, “The United States delegation pledged to assist in the creation of centres of excellence in Africa,” and Chinese Education Minister Ji Zhou proposed an international partnership plan which would see the creation of partnerships between 20 elite Chinese universities and 20 African universities.

On the conference website you can also learn what it’s like to be a student in Africa. “The life of an African student is hell,” says Oludare Ogunlana, Secretary General of the All-African Students’ Union.

A round table session of the conference, focussed entirely on Africa came up with a further list of six areas that require urgent attention:

First a call for greater institutional, national and regional collaboration; second a need to develop regional quality assurance; third, to introduce differentiated institutions to support the increased demand for higher education and research, to include open, distance and online learning; fourth, a focus on neglected areas that are deemed crucial for the diversification of African economies including agriculture, natural resource extraction, the environment, indigenous knowledge systems, health and energy; fifth, to encourage private financing; and sixth, students must be given a voice in governance of higher education at all levels.