Private Higher Education in Africa: Old Realities and Emerging Trends

Abstract

The growth of private higher education in Africa has been driven by factors such as burgeoning demand that could not be met by the public sector and policy influences as Structural Adjustment Programmes that promoted privatisation in the 1980s and beyond. In the past three decades, the continent's private higher education institutions have exhibited different growth trajectories. Variations are also evident in their policies and the quality of their offerings. However, the variation and incremental growth of this sector is not adequately captured in the extant literature. This article investigates Africa's private higher education sector based on past and emerging realities and argues that the sector exhibits nuances that have not received sufficient attention due to excessive stereotyping of PHE in Africa and elsewhere. Understanding these differences, which are sometimes described as 'exceptions', is a prerequisite for developing a comprehensive conceptualisation of current tapestries and future trends. The article begins by examining the major features of global private higher education and proceeds to Africa with its major focus on emerging trends within the continent.

Institutional Logics in the Global Higher Education Landscape: Differences in Organizational Characteristics by Sector and Founding Era

“…In earlier eras, private universities were primarily religious, whereas they have more recently been viewed as operating in competitive markets for students. Scholars writing on the cases as diverse as Central and Eastern Europe, Italy, China, Turkey, Kenya, Nigeria, Portugal, Vietnam and the United States, for example, all find that newly established private institutions tend to focus on programs such as business, accounting, information technology and new media, which are seen as highly marketable and do not require costlier laboratories or other special facilities (Cai and Yan 2015;Fain and Lederman 2015;Goyette 2012;Huong and Fry 2002;Mahlubi, Levy and Otieno 2007;Mizikaci 2011;Oketch 2003;Slantcheva 2007;Tamrat 2017;Teixeira and Amaral 2001;Tomusk 2003). At the same time, the late 1980s and early 1990s also saw the introduction of private sector principles of efficiency into public higher education, transforming universities into 'managerial' and 'entrepreneurial' universities subject to professional management, performance evaluation and competitive resource allocation (Clark 1998;Deem 2001;Enders and Jongbloed 2007;Van Vught 1991, 1994;Musselin 2009;Paradeise et al 2009;Slaughter and Leslie 1997;Sporn 2003).…”

Distance education as socio‐material assemblage: Place, distribution, and aggregation

“…Moreover, from the availability of books to internet access, the story of education is a story of inequalities in material access, subtended by race and locations (rural/urban) among others (Ofulue, ; Olakulehin, ; Yusuf, ). HE in Africa remains the preserve of the elite, with approximately only 18% of all youth in HE, and education is often seen as the path to better employment outcomes (Tamrat, ). However, existing systems of inequality on the continent are perpetuated in education where first generational enrolments are low (McMillan & Barrie, ).…”

The new kid on the block: Perceived contributions and pitfalls of private higher education in Ethiopia

“…Concerns often arise over the sector's market orientations, the quality of programmes offered, unaddressed equity issues and unethical practices that are causes for a variety of challenges and policy shifts reflected in different forms of government intervention (Teixiera et al, 2017). Among others, the sector's purported profit motive appears to be the most common source of criticism the private sector continues to receive (Tamrat, 2017). In fact, the private sector's primary goal of increasing the firm's bottom line and earning profit through programmes of dubious quality has been one of the most serious challenges the sector has been experiencing (Bernasconi, 2011).…”

“…PHE has not only created additional opportunity for diversifying the nature and type of traditional educational providers at a global level but has also brought commensurate changes to the dynamics of governments and the market within the sphere of education (Buckner, 2017; Levy, 2003, 2006). Though a late comer, PHE in the African continent has been emulating the global trend and witnessing a record growth over the last three decades with around 18 per cent of total higher education enrolment (Levy, 2018; Tamrat, 2017). Ethiopia has been part of this new development since the end of the 1990s—the period when the expansion of the PHE sector began in earnest.…”

“…There are also arguments against it, extending from vilifying its behavioural manifestations to questioning its ‘intrusion’ into a public good domain by providers whose prime motive is profit. In spite of the continuing debates about its role and pitfalls, there is in general very little empirical evidence about PHE in general (Tamrat, 2017; Teixiera et al., 2017). This study seeks to bridge this lacuna by examining the views of instructors and administrators about the benefits and pitfalls of the sector.…”