Critics of private post-secondary education often argue that foreign universities in developing nations are commercial and profit-hungry. But these debates ring hollow in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the majority of private providers are religiously-oriented with non-profit business models. Religious institutions are the fastest growing type of post-secondary institution in almost every nation north of South Africa and south of the Sahara.
Surging demand for higher education ought to have given Kenya a good reason to clean up its universities. But as the number of private and public universities has grown over the past seven years, from 17 to 24 private and five to seven public institutions, so have concerns over the quality of learning.
A decade after Monash University in Melbourne became the first foreign university to gain registration as a private higher education institution in South Africa, its ambitious goal of establishing a profitable campus in Johannesburg has still to be achieved. Meanwhile the university has changed its approach, switching focus from being 'for-profit' to 'public purpose'.
The fate of hundreds, possibly thousands, of final-year students at private universities across Ghana hangs in the balance because they may not graduate, after the National Accreditation Board revealed that they were admitted without the requisite qualifications. The board suggested that some private universities have lowered entry requirements to bolster their numbers.
The minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Peter Adwok Nyaba, has issued warning against students who enroll in unlicensed private universities in South Sudan.
While previously higher education was regarded as an equity instrument, now for the first time it is acknowledged as a major development driver in the information-knowledge system. Knowledge production and equity are linked within a more differentiated system. Two major policy goals are to double the participation rate and expand private higher education.
Private universities are opposed to a proposal to scrap the 8-4-4- system as recommended by the task force on the re-alignment of the education sector.
As the once celebrated Makerere University in Kampala suffers from bad management and a overcrowded student body, the Ugandan government is promoting the establishment of more private universities. But at what cost?
Kenyans be proud to learn that their country is the regional hub of private universities. The fact that in the past 30 years the number of private universities in Kenya has grown from only two in 1980 to 27 currently, speaks volumes about the entrepreneurship spirit of Kenyans.
The expansion of higher education has been extraordinary. Since the Catholic University of Angola, the country's first private higher education institution, was founded in 2001, the government has recognised a further 15 private universities.