Report No: AUS0001041 . Strengthening Higher Agricultural Education in Africa Executive Summary . June 2019 . Agriculture Global Practice . Document of the World Bank . . © 2019 The World Bank 1818 H Street NW, Washington DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www.worldbank.org Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Rights and Permissions The material in this work is subject to copyright. Because The World Bank encourages dissemination of its knowledge, this work may be reproduced, in whole or in part, for noncommercial purposes as long as full attribution to this work is given. Attribution—Please cite the work as follows: “World Bank. 2019. Strengthening Higher Agricultural Education in Africa © World Bank.” All queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to World Bank Publications, The World Bank Group, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2625; e-mail: pubrights@worldbank.org. Acknowledgements This report was prepared by a team including David Kraybill (Consultant, Co-author), Thomas Jayne (Consultant, Co-author), John Bonnell (Consultant), Amy Jamison (Consultant), Suresh Babu (IFPRI) and led by Peter Goodman (Senior Agriculture Economist, Task Team Leader). Irina Klytchnikova (Senior Agriculture Economist), Joanne Gaskell (Senior Agriculture Economist), Xiaonan Cao (Senior Education Specialist) and Mark Cackler (Practice Manager, Agriculture), provided valuable guidance during the study. Peer reviewers for the report were, Francisco Marmolejo (Lead Education Specialist), Willem Janssen (Lead Agricultural Economist), Irina Klytchnikova (Senior Agricultural Economist, GFADR) and Riikka Rajalahti (Consultant). The World Bank gratefully acknowledges the financial contribution to this study from the Korea World Bank Group Partnership Facility. Executive Summary 1. Introduction Over the last decade African governments and regional economic organizations have increasingly recognized the need to reshape higher agricultural education to meet the changing needs of the agri- food sector. There is a strong appetite for change but a need for a better understanding of the immense challenges that universities face in transforming into institutions that can be more dynamic and responsive, especially to the needs of the private sector needs, that can be seen as more relevant by the public sector, and meet the rapidly growing demand for university places. The objective of the study is to identify reforms and investments needed to strengthen higher agricultural education in Africa and to inform the design and implementation of future investments and related regional dialogue. The audience for this report comprises policy makers, development partners and leaders of universities who are responsible for conceptualizing and implementing strategies or investment projects to support higher agricultural education in Africa. The report raises issues that are pertinent to many African countries but the authors recognize the diversity in institutional arrangements, status of development of higher agricultural education and nature of the agri-food sector in each country and in this respect audiences in each country would need to consider the relative importance of the issues raised and recommendations made in the context of their own country. The study is structured as follows: section 2 describes the role of higher agricultural education in the wider agro-innovation system and the means through which higher education can drive transformation of the agri-food sector and economic development in Africa; section 3 describes global trends in agriculture that will drive changes in employers’ knowledge and skills needs; and the implications of these trends for skill and knowledge needs; section 4 describes the core challenges that universities face in transforming to be more responsive to needs; and the final section 5 provides recommendations on reforms and investments to strengthen higher education in Africa. 2. The Role of Agricultural Higher Education Universities in Economic Transformation Returns to investments in higher education in Africa are estimated at 21 percent—the highest in the world (Africa-American Institute, 2015). A one-year increase in average tertiary education levels is estimated to raise annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in Africa by 0.39 percentage points, and eventually yield up to a 12 percent increase in GDP (UNESCO, World Bank). Growing evidence shows that indicators of educational achievement are highly correlated with long- term per capita economic growth rates (e.g., Altinok, Angrist, and Patrinos, 2017). Fortunately, in recognition of the strong correlation between education and socio-economic development, Sub-Saharan African governments have gradually increased public spending on education by more than 6 percent each year since 2000. 1 Even with rapid economic diversification and non-farm employment expansion, recent analysis reconfirms the foundational role of agri-food systems in enabling and driving economic diversification and transformation (Christiaensen and Martin, 2018; Jayne et al., 2018). Because the economies of Sub- Saharan Africa strongly depend on agriculture and allied agri-food systems, building human capacity in these sectors is a high priority for economic development. African universities are at the foundation of “education value chains”. The productivity of millions of individuals working in the agri-food system receive their training, directly or indirectly, from people in farm extension, technical, vocational education and training programs, and informal groups, who in turn received their training from faculty in the colleges of agriculture in local universities. Even though most workers in African agri-food systems do not attend universities, they are still likely to receive training from and be influenced by university graduates. Through their diffused impact on workforce quality, higher education institutions can profoundly catalyze a country’s development (World Bank 2009). 3. Trends in the Agri-Food Sector and their Implications for Knowledge and Skills Needs Trends in the Agri-Food Sector This chapter discusses trends that will increasingly drive knowledge and skills needs from the private and public sector that Africa’s higher agricultural education must respond to. Table 1 (page 10) summarizes the trends’ resulting knowledge Figure 1 Projected Population Aged Less Than 15 Years and skills needs. Trend 1 Demographic Change – Driving an Overall Increase in Demand for Higher Education: Africa is the only region of the world where the population of under-15s is continuing to grow (Figure 1). Africans between 15 and 35 years of age now account for 55% of the region’s labor force. Every year, roughly 11 million young Africans are entering the labor force. In parallel, enrollment in secondary education has increased from 26 to 43 percent in Sub Saharan Africa since 2000. In combination Source: United Nations 2016 these factors have resulted in sharp increases in demand for university enrollment. Trend 2 Structural Evolution of Value Chains – Driving Demand for Downstream Job Skills: Over the next 40 years, the food system of Africa will continue its transition along a similar trajectory as experienced in other regions. Generation of employment and valuation addition will shift from farms to off-farm agro-food industries such as distribution, packaging, processing, finance, technology development and dissemination, insurance, technical analysis and later to food services (Minde 2012; Hill et al., 2015, Tschirley et al 2015) (Figure 2). This shift requires new kinds of workers in the private sector. 2 Figure 2 Change in the distribution of labor in the agri-food sector with country income status Trend 3 Technological Revolution – Driving Demand for Skills in Application of Digital Technology and Biotechnology to Agri-Food Value Chains: The fourth industrial revolution driven by digitization and parallel advances in automation, precision technology, geographic information systems (GIS) is rapidly changing the way agri-food value chains operate. The agricultural sector is a late adopter of digital technology compared to other sectors but the scope for its application is enormous (Figure 3). Improved weather modeling, GIS, advanced capacity to analyze climate, agricultural production mega-data and mobile technology can now provide widespread access to high accuracy early warning and production advice; blockchain and mobile connectivity can respond to increasing demand for fast delivery of perishable produce to market and traceability from farm to fork; and automation and precision agriculture can Figure 3 Opportunities Across Digital Agriculture Development Continuum dramatically improve the (Nascent, Transitional, Advanced Systems) efficiency of water and input use. Human capital development needs to keep pace with technology. Source: Africa Digital Agricultural Moonshot Presentation. World Bank May 2019 3 Trend 4 Urbanization, Rising Incomes and Dietary Change– Driving Demand for Better Nutritional Skills: While addressing under-nutrition and malnutrition, including as a result of deficiencies in specific micronutrients, is still a major challenge for large parts of Africa (Figure 4), over the next 20 years, Africa will experience a dietary transformation driven by rising incomes and urbanization. In light of these trends, African diets are already changing toward processed foods (Minde et al., 2014; Tschirley et al., 2015). Africa’s dietary transformation is causing an increased prevalence of health conditions noted in “Western diets” such as obesity (Figure 5) and cardio-vascular disease. Food science and technology and nutritional expertise will have an increasingly critical role to play. Figure 4 Prevalence of stunting among children Figure 5 Prevalence of overweight among children under 5 years of age in the WHO African Region under 5 years of age in the WHO African Region Source: Nutrition in the WHO Africa Region, World Health Organisation 2017 Trend 5 Climate Change - Driving Demand for Skills in (i) Risk Text Box 1 IPCC 2018 1.5OC Report: Management; (ii) Climate Change Mitigation and Resilience Climate Change Impact on Access to and Technology: IPCC 2018 predicts that an increase in global Availability of Nutrients. “Climate change warming from +1.5OC to +2oC would cause moderate to high impacts on dietary and weight-related risk factors are projected to increase mortality, impact on crop yields but with large regional differences (Figure owing to global reductions in food 6). Climate change threatens the achievement of the SDG 2 goal availability and consumption of fruit, to end hunger by 2050 and many other related SDGs. Impacts vegetables and red meat (Springmann et on protein availability may bring as many as 150 million people al., 2016). Further, temperature increases into protein deficiency by 2050 (Text Box 1). The global are projected to reduce the protein and micronutrient content of major cereal population exposed to water stress could increase by 50 percent crops, which is expected to further affect if global warming increases from +1.5OC to +2oC (Text Box 2). food and nutritional security (Myers et al., The consequences of a +2oC world on crop yields could be 2017; Zhu et al., 2018)”. “Impacts on reduced substantially with appropriate investment in climate protein availability may bring as many as smart agriculture. 150 million people into protein deficiency by 2050 (Medek et al., 2017)”. “Changes in temperature and precipitation are projected to increase global food prices by 3–84% by 2050 (IPCC, 2013)”. 4 Figure 6 Climate change risks and or impacts for specific natural, managed and human systems Text Box 2 IPCC 2018 1.5OC Report: Climate Change Impact on Water Stress. Depending on future socio- economic conditions, limiting global warming to 1.5°C, compared to 2°C, may reduce the proportion of the world population exposed to a climate change-induced increase in water stress by up to 50%, although there is considerable variability between regions (medium confidence). Source: Adapted from IPCC 2018 Trend 6 Land Degradation and Biodiversity Degradation – Driving Demand for Skills in Soil Water and Ecosystem Management (both scientific and economic): The 2018 Inter-Governmental Science- Figure 7 Degradation Map Policy on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Assessment Report on Land Degradation and Restoration, the first ever global assessment report on land degradation, concludes that “Currently, degradation of the Earth’s land surface through human activities is negatively impacting the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people, pushing the planet towards a sixth mass species extinction, and costing more than 10 per cent of the annual global gross product in loss of biodiversity and Source: IPBES 2018 ecosystem services”. Figure 7 shows the vast areas of Africa experiencing decreasing soil health. When land is degraded, soil carbon can be released into the atmosphere, along with nitrous oxide. An increase of just 1% of the carbon stocks in the top metre of soils would be higher than the amount corresponding to the annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning. The global loss of ecosystem services (including carbon sequestration and water storage) due to land degradation and desertification are between US$ 6.3 and 10.6 trillion annually (International Union for Conservation of Nature Issues Brief 2015). 5 Trend 7 Recognition of Gender as a Driver of Figure 8 Average female scientist shares in professional staff, Equitable Economic Development – Driving by degree in 64 developing countries, 2001–08 Demand for Greater Gender Balance in University Enrollment: Inclusion of women in agri-food sector decision making is more than an equity issue; it also has the potential to raise productivity. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) “Gender in Agriculture. Closing the Knowledge Gap” Report 2014 quantifies the potential of greater gender inclusion in agriculture and concludes that “Closing the gender gap in agriculture would generate significant gains for the agricultural sector and for society. If women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields Source: “Gender in Agriculture. Closing the Knowledge Gap” Report 2014 on their farms by 20–30 %. This could raise Note: Full Time Equivalent (FTE) total agricultural output in developing Source: IPBES countries by 2.5–4 %, which could, in turn, reduce the2018 number of hungry people in the world by 12–17 %”. There are good reasons to expect that inclusion of women higher up agrifood value chains would reap benefits. A study of research and development teams at more than 4,000 companies found that gender diversity “generates dynamics that lend themselves to radical innovation.” Yet women’s enrollment in University in Africa in common with developing countries in general is low compared to Europe for example (Figure 8). In conclusion, the extent to which Africa can compete in a rapidly evolving and increasingly sophisticated global agri-food sector and realize the full potential of the sector to contribute to job creation and reduced climate change impact, will be greatly influenced by its success in delivering appropriate knowledge and skills to the future agri-food labor force. Implications for Knowledge and Skills Needs The trends described above imply the need for more skills in five key thematic areas (Table 1) and one cross-cutting theme: (i) Agribusiness and Food Industry Management: business management, finance, marketing and consumer behavior, commodity market analysis, food technology and regulation; (ii) Human Health and Nutrition: human nutrition, food science, nutrition smart agriculture, food safety regulation, globalization, trade and zoonotic disease risks, consumer behavior; (iii) Climate Change, Agriculture and Ecosystem Management: (a) Agricultural Science (b); integrated Natural Resource and Ecosystem Management; (iv) Agricultural Risk Management Tools: finance, insurance and commodity market tools for risk management; (v) Digital Technology (and related technologies in geographic information systems, automation, precision agriculture) 6 (vi) Soft Skills (cross cutting): communication, team work and approaches to problem solving, research skills and information management, work ethics. These are not new disciplines but greater emphasis on combinations of disciplines and interactions between disciplines may be needed to address new challenges and structural change in the agri-food sector. High agricultural education may need to be broadened or reconfigure in several directions (Figure 9) (i) along value chains (to address issues from farm to retail and their inter-relationships); (ii) across elements of the ecosystem (e.g. across a watershed rather than only the production area); (iii) across scientific disciplines (genetics, soil science, nutrition, hydrology …) and (iv) across markets (e.g. greater attention beyond agricultural markets to water markets and carbon markets for example). Figure 9 Directions for Diversification of Higher Agricultural Education 7 Table 1 Implications of Trends in Agriculture for Skills Needs TREND CHALLENGE SKILLS NEEDED Structural Evolution of Value Exploit potential to create Agribusiness and Food Industry Chains downstream jobs Management Urbanization, Rising Incomes Address threat to human health Human Health and Nutrition and Dietary Change from inadequate diets Climate Change Increase resilience of & mitigate Climate Change, Agriculture and GHG emissions from agriculture Ecosystem Management Land Degradation Address threat to climate change Agricultural Risk Management resilience, water availability and Tools biodiversity Technological Revolution Exploit potential for next Digital Technology revolution in agricultural productivity and address risks of exclusion from technology 4. Core Development Challenges in Higher Agricultural Education and Lessons from Global Experience This chapter explores the challenges that African countries face in changing higher agricultural education to deliver the evolving knowledge and skills needs of the agri-food sector in response to changing needs, to meet rising demand for enrollment and facilitate greater inclusion of women in higher education and discusses how they are responding to these challenges. 5.1 National Level Challenges Rising Demand for Enrollment and Funding Constraints Universities are responding to rapidly expanding demand in a limited-resource environment. Funding increases are not keeping pace with increased demand for enrollment. Institutions often face a difficult choice between expanding student numbers in response to rising demand but sacrificing quality or restricting student intake to maintain quality of student teaching. Universities need the flexibility to adopt innovative sources of revenue generation to raise sufficient funding to meet rising demand. While spending on education as a share of GDP and the share of total education spending on tertiary education in Africa has increased to reach a similar share of GDP as the global average tertiary education enrollment in Africa is increasing albeit from a very low base and not as fast as other regions. While the majority of enrollment is in education and social science subjects rather than STEM or agriculture, agricultural universities are also facing increasing enrollment pressures. In this environment of 8 increased pressure on financial resources countries are adopting different approaches to dealing with pressure on resources. Pressure on resources has reflected in deterioration of instructional resources and facilities and loss of secure faculty positions which has contributed to the casualization of the faculty labor and loss of morale, an upsurge in student loan debt and an increase of institutional debt (Zeleza 2018; Jacob & Gokbel, 2018). Under these circumstances, it is difficult for universities to implement active learning strategies that supplement the traditional lecture with experiential learning. Text Box 3. Country Approaches to Responding to Increased Demand for Enrollment: Countries have taken different approaches to addressing this challenge. Ethiopia adopted the former approach and expanded the number of undergraduate students by 30-fold over the past two years, which has unsurprisingly resulted in a serious deterioration of the quality of instruction and supervision. Malawi adopted the latter approach and student intake has been severely restricted. Every year, approximately 15,000 students qualify for post-secondary education, however due to capacity constraints only 4,000 are accepted into higher education. Kenya partly responded to increased demand by adopting a policy that supported the creation of parallel universities with distinct mandates within the higher education system (Ng'ethe, Subotzky, & Afeti, 2007). The strategy supported the upgrading of polytechnics to technical universities offering “skills degrees” and training programs to the highest level possible. Traditional universities would then focus on research and the awarding of “knowledge degrees”. The Role of Private Universities in Meeting Rising Demand: Privatization in the higher education sector has been one way of dealing both with decreasing public resources and the increasing demand for enrollment. Levy (2009b) found that private institutions now constitute a majority in Africa and Text Box 4. The Role of Private Universities in Kenya. In Kenya, as a result of the 2012 Higher serve a key, though limited, role in absorbing Education Act in Kenya, the Higher Education demand. Adapting to competitive markets, private Loans Board (HELB) allows students to apply for institutions often specialize in commercial fields government-funded loans to private institutions. (e.g. accounting, communication, computer Kenya private universities have been scrutinized science) that are inexpensive to teach and promise since 1985 by the country’s quality assurance quick, gainful employment. Thus, private agency. As a result, the country boasts some of the most reputable private universities in the institutions typically approach education more as a region such as Strathmore University and United private commodity than a public good (Levy, States International University. 2009a). Oketch (2004, 2003). The Role of Non-Agricultural Universities in Meeting Rising Demand: Another approach has been to utilize the capacity of non-agricultural universities to deliver parts of agricultural education. There are both advantages and disadvantages in having agriculture as an agricultural focus versus a science focus. An advantage is that agriculture remains central to the academic mission, making it relatively easy both administratively and intellectually to collaborate with external agricultural stakeholders and external agricultural universities and institutes. A major disadvantage is that agricultural teachers and researchers may be isolated from scientific developments in non-agricultural fields of knowledge that have potential relevance for the increasingly complex challenges faced by the agricultural sector. 9 Incentivizing University Performance Performance-based contracting can yield positive results but only when accompanied by change to improve management. The desirability of greater accountability of universities for outputs was expressed by representatives of both the public and private sectors during interviews conducted for the country background studies. Performance-based funding (PBF) is an incentive-based funding mechanism used by some governments to improve the quality of public services. PBF is currently used for funding of public universities in Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa (Bomett 2015; Okebukola 2015a). Empirical evidence on the effects of performance contracting on public program outcomes is mixed and almost all were conducted outside of Africa. A study of the effect of performance contracting on the quality of administrative and support services at Kenyatta University concluded it had a large and positive effect, including shorter wait times for services, greater attention paid to strategic plans, better delegation of duties, more transparent promotions, more staff development, more teamwork, and better monitoring of service quality (Nguthuri, Maringa, and George 2013). In a meta-analysis of 46 studies in non-African countries, researchers found evidence of a small positive average effect on educational program outcomes (Mcguire and Gerrish 2016). However, when controls for quality of performance management were included, the size effect for most types of services increased considerably. The implication of this finding is that performance contracting systems may produce little positive effect on outcomes unless, at the same time, the quality of management also improves. Text Box 5. Performance Based Funding in in Cote D’Ivoire and Senegal: In Cote D’Ivoire, the government has not implemented performance-based contracts (PBCs) with higher education institutions, though the idea has been under discussion for several years. MESRS is now in the process of developing plans and procedures for PBCs. If implemented, the new system would require institutions to negotiate performance targets with the government and funding of higher education institutions would be based on the extent to which the institution achieves its targets. In Senegal, funding for universities is tied to a lengthy list of performance indicators including the pass rate for undergraduate students, number of university computers per student, percentage of teachers trained in the LMD (Licence-Masters-Doctoral) system, number of courses that are accredited, percentage of administrative staff trained in performance contract management, implementation of a functional quality assurance mechanism, and implementation of an improved registration system (Toguebaye 2015). Regulation and Quality Assurance To be effective, regulation must be accompanied by sufficient funding for universities to implement the changes need to meet standards. Regional organizations are leading the harmonization and expansion of quality assurance in higher agricultural education in Africa. The increase of government and public scrutiny of the quality of higher education world-wide beginning in the late 1980s is widely recognized (Brennan & Shah, 2000a; Mundial, 1994; Neave & van Vught, 10 1994; UNESCO, 1998) especially across sub-Saharan Africa (Materu, 2007). This era marked a shift in policy makers’ attention away from traditional concerns about access and cost to concerns for quality. Increasing numbers of African governments have created national quality assurance agencies in just the last thirty years. The African Quality Assurance Network, established by the Association of African Universities, now lists quality assurance bodies in 34 countries, including Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique (AfriQAN, 2018). These bodies set minimum academic standards for higher education, approve establishment of new institutions and programs, accredit institutions and programs, and monitor performance of institutions and programs. In some countries, these agencies regulate not only private, but also public universities such as in Kenya. In many of these countries, governments require universities to adopt a quality assurance policy and to create a unit to implement it. At regional level, harmonization of higher education across countries is a major goal of quality assurance initiatives (Shabani, Okebukola, and Oyewole 2014). The African Union (2015) has called on African governments to harmonize higher education systems and programs to facilitate collaboration among universities, mobility of students and faculty, and transfer of academic credit. Two regional associations focus on quality assurance: The African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education (CAMES) with 19- member countries, mainly in West Africa, and the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) which has grown from 33 in 2000 to 127 at present. At the continental level, the Association of African Universities and the African Union Commission jointly promote quality assurance through an effort known as Harmonization of African Higher Education Quality Text Box 6. Challenges of Quality Assurance and Accreditation (HAQAA) and released The Assurance in Kenya: In Kenya, stakeholders African Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in underlined the importance of Higher Education (African Union Commission 2018). understanding the center-university- national context in higher education. While there is widespread agreement that more attention National quality assurance standards seem must be paid to quality in higher education in Africa, setting to them to be prioritized over center-level standards is not enough. An institutional culture of standards. When a center’s goals, improvement and adequate financial resources are also processes, and especially monitoring and essential. Quality assurance mandates typically provide no evaluation plans are not aligned with the incremental funding for either measurement or improvement broader expectations from Kenya’s of quality. Consequently, many of the university quality Commission for Higher Education for the assurance initiatives are limited to measurement and host university, then ongoing center reporting, with little or no effect on quality. assessment is challenging. The Need for Greater Inclusion in Higher Education High female attrition rates are undermining the potential impact of increased female enrollment. Massification of higher education has led to increased opportunities for marginalized groups such as women and rural populations to access higher education. Student bodies are (slowly) becoming more diverse. Universities and higher education systems have implemented interventions such as affirmative action policies, targeted financial aid, to improve gender diversity although these have not gone uncontested (Zeleza, 2016). The focus has been on equity in enrollment but less little attention has been paid to ensuring equity in success of enrolled students (Mohamedbhai, 2014). Attrition rates among 11 women remain extremely high and Africa has the lowest female enrollment rate overall globally. It has remained one of the only regions where women’s enrollment continues to lag behind men (Zeleza, 2016). 5.2 University Leadership and Management Approach to University Transformation – A Shift to Organizational Learning To adapt to continually changing agricultural sector needs, universities must adopt an organizational learning leadership style that encourages experiment and change and rewards the relevance of teaching and learning. The rapidly evolving challenges of the agricultural sector and exponential changes in technology mean that universities must be able to continually learn about changing sector needs and adapt teaching and research accordingly. This requires that universities become learning organizations. Stationary or imported styles of leadership will fail to keep pace with change so a shift to leadership based on organizational learning is needed (Figure 10). Organizational learning, is defined as a continuous process of adapting systemically to internal and external forces that stand in the way of a university achieving economic relevance and academic excellence in its programs. A university that strives to be a learning organization no longer adopts the traditional approach to classroom instruction in which curricular planning and class preparation is teacher-centric, focusing on “what teachers teach”. Instead, instructional planning by both the university and the individual instructors is learner-centric, focusing on “what students learn”. Practical guidance on how to implement this change, including the use of organization learning experiments, is provided in the main report. Text Box 7. Country Examples of Quality Assurance: In Cote, D’Ivoire, MESRS created a Quality Assurance Department in 2016 but operation was begun only recently. Universities are required to have quality assurance units though most institutions in the country do not have a functioning unit yet. In Malawi, The National Council for Higher Education in Malawi oversees quality assurance at the national level for tertiary institutions. LUANAR has its own quality assurance unit. In Ghana, universities have implemented efforts to improve quality. At the University of Ghana, a Departmental Teaching Assessment Committee (DTAC) assesses and evaluates the performance of lecturers in conformity with international standards. In Mozambique, The Higher Education, Science and Technology (HEST) project funded by The World Bank has sought to address these challenges. It helped to streamline the accreditation process and to create policies related to research quality, managing higher education statistics, and managing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for higher education. 12 Figure 10 Three Leadership Styles in Higher Education Source: David Kraybill (report co-author) Performance Based Staff Contracts Stronger faculty incentives are needed to drive change. The use of performance-based staff contracts is in its infancy in higher agricultural education in Africa but can help address weak staff motivation and loss of staff time to supplemental income earning activities. Universities are burdened by the pursuit of supplemental income by members of academic staff from other sources which is a major diversion from core teaching and research responsibilities in some countries. Performance based staff contracts could help address this but are in their infancy in the countries studied. Potentially they provide an important incentive for faculty staff to align their efforts with university objectives. They could for example provide the necessary incentive for staff to refocus their efforts from research, which has traditionally driven promotion, to delivering high quality teaching which has reaped fewer rewards for staff in the past. Text Box 8. Performance Based Staff Contracts in Cote D’Ivoire: One of the barriers to adoption of performance-based contracts in Cote D’Ivoire is that members of academic staff in Côte d’Ivoire’s public universities, including UFHB and INPHB, are employees of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and are represented by one or more unions, thus giving them substantial independence from university deans, directors, and presidents. This independence weakens the capacity of university administrators to bring about change. However, performance-based contracting, if implemented, can help overcome the weak commitment of university employees to their own institution and its goals and thus provide a compelling rationale for change in organizational culture, or mindset. 13 Text Box 9. Performance Based Staff Contracts in Malawi: In Malawi, LUANAR has recently adopted a performance management system and it is in its first year of rolling out. Under this new system, they are beginning to institute performance-based salaries, but this is not yet in place. There is currently a general evaluation of performance on contributions to science (publications and outreach), resource mobilization, and seniority which influences salary decisions. The new performance evaluation system at LUNAR would require staff to set performance targets in the areas of teaching, research, outreach, and resource mobilization for each semester which include specific deliverables. These would be negotiated by the staff member and their manager. Staff will be evaluated every six months through a participatory appraisal process (between the staff member and their manager) with results being submitted to human resources for review. Infrastructure Investment Inadequate investment in basic utilities and infrastructure is undermining universities’ potential to conduct scientific research and adopt ICT in teaching and research. Infrastructure was identified as an important area of investment by university personnel in all five countries studied. This has been a longstanding problem - a World Bank report on tertiary education (Yusuf, Saint, and Nabeshima 2009) in 2009 observed that African universities had a large backlog of investment in laboratories, classroom and office buildings, dormitories, and ICT facilities. For training in agriculture and STEM disciplines, scientific laboratories are particularly important but the number and size of laboratories is grossly inadequate in many African universities, given the large increases in enrollment over the past decade. Many more classrooms are needed but existing classrooms also need renovation to facilitate the use of ICT in teaching and learning. Some universities visited during the country background studies reported inadequate water and electricity services. Solar power generation may be a viable option, particularly for universities in locations not serviced by the national electrical grid or where power from the grid is unreliable. ICT infrastructure, including adequate Internet bandwidth, servers, computers, and help desks, must be available. Other infrastructure needs include facilities that meet national health and safety requirements and that provide accessible for persons with disabilities. 5.3 Relevance and Quality of Teaching and Research Teaching Designing more relevant courses The use of analytical tools such as use of labor market information, graduate tracer studies and occupational analysis is not widespread and could be adopted to improve the relevance of teaching. There is a consensus among alumni and agribusiness companies that current university agriculture education tends to be overly theoretical, unapplied, and/or outdated. In the countries studied, these are well recognized challenges and efforts have been made to respond to them. Nevertheless, the systematic use of analytical tools to assess agri-food sector skills needs and feedback into the design of curricula and research programs is inadequate. 14 Tracer studies that track where students Text Box 10. Country Availability of Labor Market are employed when they graduate and Information. Labor observatories have been established in occupational studies to provide a Ghana (Ghana Ministry of Employment and Social Relations, detailed understanding of the task n.d.) Ivory Coast (Zito 2011), and Kenya (Kenya Ministry of involved in specific jobs, would greatly Labour and Social Protection, n.d.). In Mozambique, the inform efforts to increase the relevance International Labor Organization is assisting the Ministry of of higher agricultural education but such Labor to create a labor market observatory, though data from a rigorous approach appears to be the system are not yet available to the public (Mozambique uncommon. Ministry of Labor, n.d.). Malawi conducts periodic labor market surveys but it does not appear to have a labor market Curricula Revision observatory. While worthwhile examining if it is available, There are serious bureaucratic barriers to labor market observatory data often comes from low- changing curricula. While regulation of response surveys and does not provide much occupational quality is important, universities must be detail (Johanson and Adams 2004). given sufficient flexibility to change curricula design. If teaching is to improve in African universities, it is essential that leaders and funders be mindful of the bureaucratic and personnel constraints that stand in the way of curricular reform. One constraint is the bureaucratic cycle of curricular change. Most of the universities visited during the country background studies reported that curricula are reviewed every 3-6 years. In general, universities do not make official revisions in curricula outside this cycle, which is mandated in most cases by the government ministry or agency that regulates higher education. Another constraint on curricular reform arises from heavy faculty workloads and the absence of incentives to change. Curricular revision is nearly always done by the faculty members who teach the courses under review, who already have a heavy teaching load and view curricular revision as additional work with little benefit to them. Providing Experiential Learning Experiential learning such as internships are common but they tend to be under-resourced and suffer from limited participation of employers in planning, supervision and career follow up and incentives for businesses to fully participate and benefit from such programs. Inadequate practical internship opportunities has been cited by higher agricultural educationists as the major reason for weak university-private sector linkages. The use of internships by businesses as a means of employee recruitment is not widespread in Africa. Managers tend to regard internships as a bother and unjustified expense. Consequently, universities have difficulty finding an adequate number of internship slots for their students (Reinhard et al. 2016). A related problem is that companies that accept interns tend to relegate them to the status of observers and assign them tasks peripheral to core business functions. There is also inadequate supervision of internships due to the high associated costs. 15 Research The staff incentive and support system is not conducive to maintaining a long-term team of senior researchers in universities. There is a need for stronger incentives and support systems to build strong research teams and portfolios. The proportion of academic staff who hold senior rank is far less than the proportion who hold junior or middle rank in many African universities, and efforts to increase the relative size of the senior staff are often unsuccessful. This imbalance has important implications for the research productivity of universities since the pursuit of promotion through a series of well-defined steps is an important motivator of research activity and scientific publication (Tien 2000). Instead of building their research portfolios for promotion, many junior academic staff teach the required load of courses without devoting much time and serious effort to research. They spend the rest of their work time on remunerative consultancies, for which affiliation with a university enhances their visibility until they have developed an independent reputation. At that point in their career, many leave the university for jobs with NGOs, businesses, government, or self-employment. A World Bank study of staff retention in five African universities found that junior staff often leave the university because they regard the promotion process to be obscure, unfair, too long, or overly taxing and the salary level to be unattractive (Tettey 2006). Among the ranks of junior academic staff who remain and advance to the middle level, many ultimately experience “retirement income anxiety” as they approach their final decade of work and leave the university for higher-paid employment and a work environment with a later mandatory retirement age. 5.4 Collaboration Africa Region Collaboration on Teaching and Research There are strong financial, technical and human capital related rationale for collaboration between universities in the Africa region on higher agricultural education and research. While good examples of cooperation exist, the arrangements for cooperation are somewhat ad-hoc and there is an opportunity for more systematic cooperation that could be supported by regional network organizations. Collaboration between universities in the Africa region is a much under-utilized opportunity to build the regions collective capacity for higher education. Reasons for collaboration may include learning about the process of organizational transformation, learning about degree programs, developing joint degree programs or courses, engaging in joint research, exchanging students or faculty, or building the capacity of a weaker university. There are a number of good examples of collaboration between universities across the region (Text Box 11) that demonstrate the potential for collaboration in these areas within the region There is a strong rationale for regional collaboration: (i) A certain degree of specialization (in topics most relevant to each country) in each country and mutual sharing with other countries can potential generate regional cost savings; 16 (ii) Small countries in particular benefit because if they operate in isolation they incur a high share of overhead costs in trying to deliver teaching and research on a small scale for a broad range of themes. (iii) Exchange of information and contacts yields mutual benefits for collaborating countries and joint research efforts may have greater credibility and application that those conducted individually. Text Box 11. Examples of Africa Region Collaboration on Teaching and Research • The Collaborative Master’s Program in Agricultural Economics, operates as a joint effort of eight universities in eastern and southern Africa (African Economic Research Consortium, n.d.). Distinguished international faculty reside at one of the universities for periods of time ranging from a few weeks to a few years to teach graduate classes, undertake curriculum review for other courses at the anchor university, mentor junior faculty at the anchor university, build joint research programs with faculty and students at the anchor university, and promote south-south cooperation. • The Plant breeding sandwich program is implemented jointly by University of Cape Coast and the University of Kwazulu-Natal. • The Partnership for Africa's Next Generation of Academics (PANGEA), a doctoral training and skills development program involving eight partner universities in Ghana, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Cameroon (Nakkazi 2016). PANGEA conducts short courses and workshops across the eight-member campuses on technical and soft skills for research. • The Research and Innovation Management for Africa and the Caribbean linked universities in southern, eastern, central, and western part of the continent with partners in the United Kingdom and Belgium (Kirkland and Ajai-Ajagbe 2013). The initiative trained research management officers and assisted in the launching of Research and Innovation Management Associations (RIMAs) for East and Central Africa for on-going research management capacity development. • Degree program development through the Africa Tuning, a large network of African universities, initially focused on development of undergraduate and post-graduate degrees and curricula in the disciplines of medicine, teacher education, agricultural sciences, mechanical engineering, and civil engineering (Hahn and Teferra 2013). The program, which is sponsored by the European Union, has broadened to include higher education management. The challenge is to determine what the institutional architecture for such collaboration should look like so that collaboration can be organized in a proactive and systematic way rather than on an ad-hoc basis. Here, regional organizations such as RUFORUM already play strong role and their continued leadership will be important. North-South Collaboration on Research International support for research should increasingly focus on African-led solutions. Although the flow of researchers in and out of the continent is instrumental in strengthening skills and maintaining the exchange of ideas and practice, its transient nature hinders local capacity-building and the development of sustainable local partnerships. West Africa has been notably more isolated in terms of North South research collaboration than the rest of the continent. 17 A joint report by the World Bank and Elsevier, “A decade of development in Sub-Saharan African Science, technology, engineering & mathematics research” published in 2014, gives interesting pointers to the underlying issues affecting development of STEM and agricultural research in the different regions of SSA. While Sub-Saharan Africa’s share of the global research output is significantly increasing, more than doubling from 2003 to 2012, health research still accounts for almost half of this output. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and agricultural research lag behind both in quantity and impact, and in interest - and hence potential funding - from the corporate sector. The key drivers of the region’s research are international collaboration and targeted national and international funding which tend to privilege North-South partnerships to the detriment of inter-African collaboration and stifle local initiatives. Researcher mobility follows a similar pattern with a high percentage of Sub- Saharan Africa’s researchers being non-local and transitory. Although the flow of researchers in and out of the continent is instrumental in strengthening skills and maintaining the exchange of ideas and practice, its transient nature hinders local capacity-building and the development of sustainable local partnerships (Figure 11). The fragmentation of current research and academic infrastructure across the region, particularly in STEM, is a further obstacle to the development of African-led technical solutions. West Africa has been notably more isolated in terms of North South research collaboration than the rest of the continent. Figure 11 Level of international collaboration for SSA regions (2012) and percentage of non-local, transitory researchers for SSA regions, 1996-2013. Source: A Decade of Development In Sub-Saharan African Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics Research. World Bank, Elsevier. 2014. Local Collaboration with Agricultural Policy Research Institutes Collaboration between universities and agricultural policy research institutes is mutually beneficial. While policy research institutes should maintain their independence, a strong association with universities can help ensure the survival of such policy research institutes which are often dependent on external project funding. Experience in development of agricultural policy research institutes (see examples for Kenya and Zambia in Text Box 15 and 16 main text) underline the importance of the collaboration between universities and policy research institutes in terms of (i) the university providing a supply of highly qualified researchers to the policy research institutions; (ii) the use of policy research institute data for university research; 18 (iii) creation of opportunities for university academics to apply their academic knowledge to the policy issues of the day and (iv) the important role of the university in advocating for the policy research institutes interests to government and donors and securing funding. They also draw attention to some of the challenges of such collaboration including: (i) achieving independent policy research while being affiliated with a public university; and (ii) dealing with tensions created by pay differentials between the two organizations sometimes driven by donor funding on policy research institutes and short-term consulting opportunities. 5. Summary of Recommendations Recommendations are structured around the core development challenges discussed in the previous section. Countries would need to consider which of the recommendations provided are relevant to the specific challenges, institutional arrangements and development status of the country. The core ingredients of the proposed approach to transformation of higher agricultural education described in the recommendations include identifying changing knowledge and skills needs that higher agricultural education reform must respond to and then implementing change by; (i) utilizing the capacity different types of universities and departments to respond to changing demand for higher agricultural education; (ii) adopting an organizational learning approach to implementing change; (iii) ensuring adequate funding and investment to implement change; (vi) affording university management sufficient flexibility in decision making to implement change; (vii) providing universities and faculty staff with sufficient incentives to change; (iv) adopting analytical tools to improve the relevance of teaching and research; (v) making work-integrated learning more effective; and (viii) strengthening local, regional and international collaboration in ways that leads to African-lead initiatives. Global experience suggests that these ingredients should not be implemented in isolation. For example, curricula change, requires changes in staff skills and infrastructure; performance-based funding does not work without sufficient funding and leadership to bring about change. Equally well, overly complex reform programs place an excessive burden on faculty and are difficult to implement. To help consider the phasing of recommendations, Table 2 categorizes groups of recommendations in terms of whether they could be implemented in the short-term (relatively quickly within 1-2 years without spending reform, policy reform or capacity building) , medium-term (within 3-5 years requiring some time for reform and capacity building) or long-term measures (within 5 or more years requiring major reform, capacity building or consensus building), although this would be quite country specific. 6.1 National Level Reforms Vision/ Strategy Consider the need to develop a National Vision or Strategy for Building Higher Agricultural Education or update existing strategies to define; (i) objectives of reform; (ii) vision for necessary changes in the thematic scope of higher agricultural education to respond to changing knowledge and skills needs (further detail below); (iii) vision for enrollment (ii) vision for equity and diversification; (iv) institutional strategy including the role of private universities, agricultural and non-agricultural universities; (v) financial strategy; and (vi) regulatory strategy 19 Thematic Scope of Higher Agricultural Education As part of the above strategy, in cooperation with the private sector, public sector and universities, countries may consider the need for changes in thematic scope of higher education including to respond to skills needs in the areas of (i) agribusiness and food industry management; (ii) human health and nutrition; (iii) climate change, agriculture and ecosystem management; (iv) agricultural risk management tools; (v) digital technology in agri-food value chains, with a strong focus on broadening higher education to address issues and interactions across markets (agricultural, environmental, financial and risk markets), along value chains, throughout ecosystems and across disciplines. Institutional Architecture Define the respective roles of agricultural universities/ departments; non-agricultural universities/ departments; and private universities, in delivering higher agricultural education (graduate numbers and thematic scope) and the source of funding for each. Funding • Universities need to be offered the flexibility to adopt innovative sources of revenue generation. • Loosening regulations governing income generation by universities would allow them to retain all internally generated income. Incentives - Performance Based Funding • Performance-based funding could be tested through a phased approach, initially focusing on the most easily measurable outcomes. Regulation and Quality Assurance • Encourage universities to embrace quality assurance and use it as a tool to measure the impact of their transformation initiatives. • Government may offer university management the necessary flexibility in decision making to achieve minimum standards. 6.2 Strengthening University Leadership and Management Leadership Training • Senior management (Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice Chancellors, and Deans) should be provided with training on the introduction of organizational learning into their universities. Performance Based Salaries • Employees could develop annual work plans identifying how they will contribute to the annual work plan of the unit to which they are assigned. • In universities that have control over the salary levels of their staff, salary increases can be tied to performance with reference to the annual work plan. • In universities where the government sets salaries, employee performance could be tied to the allocation of discretionary funding for bonuses, skill upgrading, conference travel, or sabbaticals. • Student evaluations of teaching (initially as an organizational experiment) could complement performance-based staff contracts. 20 6.3 Improving the Relevance and Quality of Teaching and Research Relevance Enhancement in Teaching and Learning • Adoption of Tools for Relevance Enhancement: Universities can consider utilizing (i) labor market analysis; (ii) graduate tracer studies and (iii) occupational analysis as tools to improve the relevance of curricula design. • Translation of Gaps into Curricula and Pedagogical Development: (i) Curricular revision can be based on findings from labor market information reviews, tracer studies, occupational analyses, and dialogue with employers; (ii) The frequency of curricular revision could be shortened from the regular cycle of 3-6 years; (iii) In the short run, focus on improving teaching methods, with greater focus on active-learning methods. Teaching methods can be changed much faster than curricula; Teaching and Learning Centers should be created in Universities to provide training on active learning strategies and on curricular revision based on South African experience for example. • Work Integrated Learning: (i) Work integrated learning must be adequately resourced to ensure proper supervision; (ii) Employers must be afforded an opportunity to take a more active role in the management of interns and be encouraged to fully integrate interns into their business during internships; (iii) Teaching and Learning Centers, could support guest lectures, industrial exposure programs, internships, case study development, business-decision simulators, and innovation incubators. Relevance Enhancement in Research (a) Researcher and Research Chair Development • Training for junior researchers: (a) African universities may consider sponsoring periodic workshops on research management; (b) Higher education associations such as the African Association of Universities (AAU) or RUFORUM could offer training-of-trainer (TOT) workshops for senior researchers. • Research Chairs: To attract and retain outstanding researchers, African universities and governments ministries and agencies should establish Research Chairs with a long-term investment trajectory. • Incentives for research: African universities can promote an internal culture of research productivity by giving annual awards for research achievements. • Retention and promotion of researchers: (a) Universities could increase their staff retention rate and increase their research output by improving the clarity and transparency of promotion policies; and (b) Raising the mandatory age for retirement would increase the proportion of senior academic staff. (b) Research Support • Access to International Journals and Periodicals: (a) Universities may be eligible for reduced rates for developing countries through Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), and other programs (USAIN, n.d.); (b) Practical knowledge of digital librarianship and the required ICT infrastructure are essential for universities to provide online access to journals. 21 • Support Services for University-Industry Relations: African universities wishing to strengthen their collaboration with industry should consider creating an office of university-industry relations within the university to nurture and expand applied joint research and development. • Sabbatical Leaves: Sabbatical leaves for university faculty would be useful in areas such as value chains, agribusiness, tissue culture, gene editing, plant breeding, and irrigation. 6.4 Strengthening Collaboration • Regional collaboration: There is a strong rationale for delivering training and research at a regional level (e.g. West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa or other country grouping) through collaboration between universities (and collaboration between universities and research institutes within a region) in several cases: (i) Regional Public Good - where research or teaching addresses challenges that are of a regional nature because they are linked to regional resources, regional trade, reginal movement and regional policy (such as regional water, energy, climate change nexus issues; regional trade and food security issues; cross-border conflict, pastoralism or migration and transboundary diseases), the delivery of related teaching and research may fully or in part best be provided at a regional level. Such a regional approaches nurtures a common understanding of the issues across affected countries, jointly created solutions and provides a natural platform for cross country collaboration at many levels. (ii) Specialization – where a country is particularly well endowed with expertise, experience or resources that make it particularly well suited to delivering research and training on a particular theme; (iii) Economies of Scale – where training is of a generic nature, not country specific and involving a relatively small number of participants, such as pedagogy or leadership training, there are cost savings from delivery at a regional level. Regional network organizations such as RUFORUM and the Association of African Universities have a string role to play in conceptualizing and facilitating such regional collaboration. • Enhancing North-South Collaboration for African lead solutions  International collaboration, as the main driver of African research, should continue to be nurtured but international programmes should include strong collaboration with local industry and government to help nurture local solutions and capacity.  Similarly, academic mobility in STEM and agricultural research should be encouraged as a way of strengthening skills and maintaining the exchange of ideas and practice. However, the mechanisms of mobility should favor the return of African researchers to build local capacity. • Types of collaboration with national, regional, and continental universities may include:  Collaboration on Organizational Transformation and Leadership including collaboration with other African universities, that have transformed in innovative ways over the past 10-20 years;  Collaboration to Develop Joint Degree Programs, Training Programs, or Courses; including (i) collaboration to develop degree programs in new disciplines could collaborate and pooling 22 resources with other universities; and (iii) collaboration on change to the Licence-Master- Doctoral (LMD) system through collaborate with universities that have adopted this system.  Collaboration for Research including: (i) provision of travel funds to researchers for joint research work or consultation on common research interest: (ii) collaborate to improving research management capacity; and (iii) collaboration on the design and delivery of short courses on post graduate research skills.  Collaboration to Exchange Students or Faculty including: (i) Provision of opportunities for faculty or post-graduate students to spend a semester or a year at another university to take courses, work with a professor, or use laboratory facilities; (ii) Visits from faculty members from other domestic or overseas universities - these could be recruited through the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program; and (iii) mentoring the teaching staff of weaker universities especially those with few doctorates. Collaboration with Government Ministries • African universities should promote the engagement of faculty in providing research findings as a basis for evidence based national agricultural plans and strategies of the Ministries of Agriculture. • African universities should also collaborate with public data collection institutions. Collaboration with Agricultural Policy Units • There are synergistic mutual benefits between a well-functioning university-affiliated policy institute and the related disciplinary departments of the university. • The participation of universities in agricultural policy institutes research brings valued stature and helps ensure the relevance to the affiliated universities and data regularly collected by research institutes can be used in university research. Collaboration with ATVET institutions • The staff of Agricultural and Technical Vocation Educational Institutes (ATVETs) are often trained by a local university that has agricultural programs. Such universities should build their linkages with ATVETs and help them improve their human resources through workshops on technical topics and mentoring. 23 Table 2 Prioritization of Key Recommendations Short Term Medium Term Long Term National Level Development of a national vision / strategy for higher education in agriculture Ensure adequate levels of funding Giving universities the flexibility to retain income Performance based funding (phase 1 – administrative indicators) Performance based funding (phase 2 – outcome-based indicators ) Embracing quality assurance to implement change Giving management flexibility for core management decisions University Leadership and Management Leadership training in organizational learning Performance based salaries Relevance and Quality of Teaching and Research Teaching Labor market analysis Tracer studies Occupational analysis Changing curricula Changing pedagogy Changing work integrated learning Research Researcher and research chair training and development Introduction of incentives for researchers Increasing the mandatory retirement age Improving support for research (IT, access to journals, sabbaticals) Collaboration Strengthening collaboration with national, regional, and continental universities Enhancing North-South research collaboration Strengthening collaboration with policy research institutes Strengthening collaboration with Ministries of Agriculture Strengthening collaboration with ATVET 24 LAST PAGE 25