IEASA & ANIE ink MOU to advance mobility
Published 15/10/2020
Two of Africa’s main internationalisation of higher education players, the International Education Association of South Africa and the continental organisation African Network for the Internationalisation of Education, have entered into a partnership that will enable them to enhance their cooperation on the continent.
The two organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will see them carry out joint activities to promote internationalisation within Africa and beyond, over an initial period of five years.
“We are seeking to make it a living partnership that will take the African voice to the global scene”
Under the document signed last month, the pair will work together to take a proactive role in policy-making with regard to international education in Africa.
They will also work together to build capacity at institutional, national and regional levels for the good of internationalisation.
According to IEASA president Orla Quinlan, the MOU will see the two organisations host joint activities in a long term relationship.
“We at IEASA are seeking to make the engagement with ANIE a living partnership that will work to take the African voice to the global scene where it is often missing or absent,” she said.
The African voice has been rare and meek in the world of international education and the time was ripe to raise it and assert the place of the continent, she added.
Founding ANIE board member and executive director James Jowi said internationalisation of higher education presents Africa with several opportunities and challenges that can best be addressed through collaborations and joint efforts.
He emphasised that Africa needs to hold together and develop common “trajectories for engaging with internationalisation at home” and also for engaging with partners in other world regions.
“Africa could be the next frontier for several activities of internationalisation.
“The ANIE-IEASA partnership will thus provide opportunities for activities including, capacity building and knowledge sharing workshops, development and engagement with policy processes for internationalisation, developing best practices in internationalisation activities, among others,” he told The PIE News.
In addition, ANIE and IEASA will organise and facilitate workshops, webinars, seminars, conferences, dialogue sessions and other programs aimed at capacity building and sharing of experiences on internationalisation of higher education in Africa.
They also will undertake and support collective research on the internationalisation of higher education and share specific resources, exchange publications and research outcomes.
This is besides supporting partnerships in development, connecting and networking of scholars in Africa and other regions of the world.
To fund their operations they will collaborate in resource mobilisation for the execution of mutual activities and will develop an implementation action plan to actualise the MOU.
Already the fruits of the cooperation have been witnessed after the organisations held a joint virtual conference for two days at the beginning of October that brought together nearly 200 participants.
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