AAHEFA president on opportunities, challenges and responding to Covid-19
‘It feels good to be back and to get this opportunity to discuss important policies and to identify new opportunities post-covid,” said Charles Ringera, president of AAHEFA and chief executive of Kenya’s Higher Education Loans Boards (HELB), told Mail & Guardian. “You can see that members have missed one another and they are keen to have these debates and discussions.”
According to Ringera, the pandemic taught him so much about what is, and isn’t, possible when it comes to learning across Africa.
“We have seen how learning can take place anywhere,” he outlined, noting that there is potential for digital learning to democratise higher education because it makes it possible for universities to enrol more students online. This could make tertiary education more affordable.
“Beyond this, the pandemic has shown us how technology can be a medium for delivery of other things too,” added Ringera, such as the potential for these technologies to simplify the allocation of funds and the process of deciding how to award money to students.
Addressing the challenges faced by funding schemes and institutions and the complexities that these create, Ringera said that funds must cater to market needs.
While some of his colleagues may have different opinions on this point, he is adamant that we need to use what we have to fund students who are studying to gain the skills the market requires and that are the most in-demand.
“It’s no surprise that we have meagre resources. We need to listen to the market and direct our funding towards the skills the market needs. If not, students will walk out of university with a degree and they won’t be able to find jobs.” However, finding the funds to help these studies is a major stumbling block.
“In Kenya, about 27% of the GDP is earmarked towards education. Is this enough? No. The money we have isn’t sufficient to meet the demand.” For Ringera, this reality means that financing schemes and funds need to consider alternatives — a topic that was widely discussed during the two-day conference.
“We’ve all heard the analogy about it taking a village to raise a child. When it comes to higher education funding, we need that village. And where policies are not in place to support the efforts of funding institutions, there is room to champion this cause to bodies like the African Union,” he said.
As the AAHEFA president, Ringera hopes that the conference will serve as a platform for important policy dialogues, understanding that the needs and hurdles in different environments, and the legislation dictating how money is allocated/ spent, are very different.
“We know that the social fabric of each country is different. So we need to listen to what the different countries are doing and then take what we’ve gained from these discussions and customise it for our specific region.”
“These discussions will be richer, the more people we get to join,” he said. AAHEFA has 11 member countries, which amounts to about 20% of the continent.
“Africa’s potential is immense. And this potential lies with our youth. This is a gemstone that we can sell to the rest of the world. But we can’t send these people out into the world if they are semiskilled or unskilled.
“This is why skill acquisition is so important and also why we all need to participate in conversations around higher education funding. In doing this, we can make sure that every child of Africa can gain the skills they need to participate economically and productively in the global economy.”