Physical Address
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Scholars, researchers, and practitioners within and outside the higher education sector, from Africa and beyond, converged at the Tayo Aderinokun Hall, University of Lagos on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 to Re-imagine the future of Higher Education in Africa.
It was the Opening Ceremony of the 4th Biennial International Conference of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), the first to be hosted in Nigeria by the University of Lagos.
A Paradigm Shift
The Chairperson of the Local Organising Committee, Prof. Grace Otinwa, set the tone for the event with her Opening Remarks.
“The 4th ARUA Biennial International Conference has brought together experts from universities, research institutions, government, industry, civil society, and international organisations to discuss the potential ways of reimagining the future of higher education on the African continent in the coming days. As we navigate the complexity and challenges of the 21st Century, it becomes increasingly evident that the future of our nations is tied to the quality of education that we provide to our students. Your role at this conference is to uniquely and significantly create a paradigm shift”, she declared.
The Place to Imagine a Desired Future
In her welcome remarks, the Vice-Chancellor of UNILAG and Chief Host of the Conference, Professor Folasade Ogunsola, OON, FAS, expressed delight at the honour to host over three hundred (300) participants in the Akoka campus of the University. She re-echoed the timeliness of the conference theme, and encouraged participants to seize the opportunity provided by the event to contribute their quotas to re-shaping higher education delivery in Africa.
Her words: “We are simply delighted by the fact that beacons of knowledge across the African continent and beyond are convening here to rethink the future of teaching, learning, knowledge production of and for Africa. Universities are the place where a desired future can be imagined, and our business today is to imagine a desired future for Africa.”
Africa Needs You
The Chair of ARUA Board and Vice-Chancellor of Makere University, Uganda, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe, in his remarks, urged participants at the conference to keep the real challenges of Africa at the top of their minds in their presentations and deliberations.
He challenged African researchers to come to the continent’s rescue, “Indeed, we, as African universities, must move fast and move intentionally to increase the number of researchers in Africa; and that’s the only sure way we will solve Africa’s problem of abject poverty. I am particularly happy that many of the researchers in our Centres of Excellence are young people, many of them not event half my age. That is a good sign for Africa. I want to encourage all of you, as you do your work, to always remember the pressing issues for Africa”.
The Keynote Address: Reinventing Higher Education in the 21st Century: Bridging the Gap Between National Agendas and Transnational Challenges
Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Prof Adam Abib, delivered the first Keynote Address of 4th ARUA Biennia International Conference. He spoke about the inequality of the global knowledge creation architecture which has put many global-south countries at a disadvantage, and called for a bold rethinking and reconfiguration of that.
Prof. Abib highlighted the dynamics of global political economy and their impacts on a collective humanity that is increasingly being challenged.
His words, “Today, we are even more imperilled, and our political leaders are not rising to the historical challenge we are confronting as a human community. But are, as leaders of universities from around the world, institutions that are meant to pioneer knowledge beyond national boundaries, rising to the challenge itself?”
“Instead of defending a differential fee regime and high international fees on the grounds that students come to us because we are research-intensive universities, would it not be better to recognise that the real reason they come to the UK is because it opens open up employment markets in North America and Western Europe. It is the inequality in our world that drives student mobility far more than the research intensity of the universities of the North”.
He urged participants at the conference to begin to consider advocating against such skewed model and political economy of higher education, “Let us be honest, all of us are imprisoned by national politics, and the political economy in which our institutions are embedded. This forces us to manage in a manner that prioritises our short-term survival as institutions and universities, rather than our medium-term responsibility to bold, equitable transnational relations that broadens the global knowledge base and the professional capabilities across our world”.
The Keynote Speaker referenced several initiatives across the world that are beginning to proffer alternatives to the global knowledge inequity that is currently obtainable. According to him, “We are in a far better place than we were five years ago, dear colleagues. But I fear that these initiatives are still at the margins of our normal operations; and we are proceeding at a pace that is too slow for the challenges that we confront.”
He strongly advocated for a global conversation and collaboration between and among knowledge systems across the world, because “the real challenges that confront humanity are transnational in nature and could never be comprehensively addressed in national silos.
This is what it means to suggest that Science should have no boundaries. It should be a continuous process of engagement between theory and application; between the Universal and the Local”.
Prof. Abib urged participants to rise to the challenge of global knowledge inequality and isolationism as they engage in several discourses at the 4th ARUA Biennial International Conference.
Executive Presence
The Executive Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwoolu, was represented at the conference by the Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Mr. Tolani Sule Akibu. He commended ARUA as a continental body dedicated to the advance of knowledge and expressed his delight of their choice of Lagos for hosting the conference in Nigeria.
His words, “The journey of ARUA is a testament to the power of unity and definiteness of purpose. The Lagos State Government is proud of you and we are glad to have you in our city. In Lagos State, ultimately, our aim is to make our universities centres of excellence which will all-round development in our state, with our citizens at the centre of it”.
The Governor congratulated the University of Lagos for hosting the international event and declared the conference open.
The foundation Secretary-General of the African Research Universities Alliance, Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, moderated proceedings at the event.
The 4th ARUA Biennial International Conference runs from Wednesday, November 15 to Friday, November 17, 2023. It is a gathering of over seventeen (17) research-intensive African universities.
Source: UNILAG
