SN 3 EP 5: Leading Higher Education Reforms in Africa with Professor Nelson Ijumba

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Mazungumzo – African Scholarly Conversations, Professor Nelson Ijumba shares his experience leading the restructuring of the University of Rwanda, merging seven institutions into one research-led university. He discusses the challenges of institutional change, faculty development, and internationalization, offering key insights for higher education leaders looking to enhance research and innovation in African universities.

Here Are the Key Things to Look Out For

1. Transforming Higher Education in Africa: Professor Nelson Ijumba shares how the University of Rwanda merged seven institutions to create a unified, research-driven university.

2. Overcoming Resistance to Change: Learn about the challenges of institutional restructuring, from faculty concerns to curriculum harmonization, and the leadership strategies that made it possible.

3. The Role of Research and Internationalization: This episode highlights why research productivity, industry partnerships, and global collaboration are crucial for African universities to remain competitive.

4. Lessons for Academic Leaders: Professor Ijumba offers insights on navigating change, building strong institutions, and shaping the future of higher education in Africa.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Intro:

Welcome to Mazungumzo, African scholarly conversations, a podcast that highlights the perspectives of various stakeholders in academia, and research fields across Africa through open dialogue or mazungumzo on scholarly communication in Africa.

Joy Owango

Welcome to mazungumzo, African scholarly conversations, where we are joined by an expansive list of African policy makers, science communication specialists, innovators and tertiary institution leads who contribute to this realm of scholarly and science communication. I’m your host, Joy Owango, the Executive Director of the training center in communication, TCC – Africa. Capacity building trust based at the University of Nairobi, chiromo campus in Nairobi, Kenya.

Today, we are honored to be joined by Professor Nelson Ijumba, a distinguished academic leader whose career spans over 40 years, during which he has made significant contributions to higher education and research across Africa. Professor Ijumba has held has held prominent leadership positions at various universities, including as Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic Affairs and research Emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the University of Rwanda, as well as Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research and honorary professor of the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. He currently serves as the International Research and Innovation Program Manager at Coventry University’s Africa hub. A warm welcome to the to the program. Professor Ijumba.

Prof . Ijumba

Thank you very much. Joy. Good afternoon and good afternoon to your listeners, wherever they are.

Thank you for inviting me to this podcast.

Joy Owango

You are most welcome. You’re most welcome. So to begin with Professor Ijumba, what first inspired you to pursue an academic career path was becoming a scholar always your driving passion. Or do you have different ambitions initially? Did you have different ambitions initially before finding your calling in academia?

Prof . Ijumba

Well, I think I was fortunate enough that, first of all, I had an interest in sharing knowledge, I think, but not necessarily as an academic, but also when I was young, part of my formative years, I grew up on a university campus because my father was working there, so that scenario of university settings and so on made me think about career and academics. I think I was fortunate that when I went for my

first year in engineering. We were the first batch to be admitted into the engineering program, the investor of Dar es Salaam, And that’s when the university was starting. So they are looking for staff to for academic staff programs. So when I when we finished after my first year undergraduate degree, quite a number of us, all those, all of us who got first class owners from the different from the different departments, were recruited into becoming tutorial Assistants. And I think that’s what started my academic career, and before the university was engaged in a staff development program, we got government supported scholarship from different donors, and we went for higher studies. So that’s how my career in academics started. I got a British currency scholarship to go to UK for my master, then I got Dutch scholarship to do my PhD. I also got fellowship to do industrial training and so on. So that’s how I was, in a way, ushered into the academic career because of the fact that I came to the university at the right time, or I graduated from engineering the right time when they were looking for academics to support as part of their staff development program. Yeah.

Joy Owango

Okay, so that means you started your career in Tanzania, and then you found yourself in South Africa before moving to Rwanda. So at what point did you move to South Africa.

Prof. Ijumba

Actually, I was at the University of Dar es Assam, until, when I finished my PhD, right, came back saved for, I think, two years, then by good chance, I got an opportunity the University of Nairobi. So I moved over to the University of Nairobi, where I stayed for six years from 1989 to 1995

Joy Owango

So you’re actually in Kenya, that’s good,

Prof . Ijumba

yes, yeah. I worked at the University of Nairobi, so I know chiromo campus. I know all those areas. I was in the electric engineering department, okay, next to Norfolk Hotel opposite the Admin building. So in 1995 that’s when I went to South Africa, at the University of the University of, Durban, Westville. And then, if you recall, there was a transformation restructuring of higher education. It was merged with the University of Natal to form the of KwaZulu Natal. So from about 2000 it was the university of KwaZulu Natal, okay. Another ,So I was at the University of Durban, Westville, then we moved to the University it’s merged with become the University of KwaZulu Natal I served as dean for about six years of engineering, and then after my that, I applied for the post of Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research, the same university where I served for five years until my retirement age. And then, fortunately, that’s when there was a restructuring of the in the higher education sector in Rwanda. And I was, I got a post in the where they did the Academic Affairs and research and the new reformed University in Rwanda.

Joy Owango

Okay, so you’re looking at your experience having worked in Tanzania, and then you’re the beginning of and then in Kenya, but then getting into leadership in higher in within the university, in South Africa. How did that influence your position within the University of Rwanda? Because you came in the University of Rwanda as the deputy, as the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and research. So how did that influence your activities within the university? Because in 2013 the government of Rwanda took a significant step in merging the seven public higher education institutions and consolidating it into the University of Rwanda. so how did this, your previous experience, help influence in this, in being part of this conversation?

Prof Ijumba

Yeah, actually, it’s it helped very much in the sense that when I was at the University of Durban Westville, there was this merger of the University of Durban Westville and the University of Natal, yeah, if you are aware of the history of education in South Africa, it was highly segregated, right? So the University of Durban Westville was primarily an Indian University. It was established to cater for the Indian community. On the other hand, the University of Natal was for the white community. So now these were merged. So you can imagine the histories, the perceptions , it was like merging an historical white university with a historical black university, So I was the dean at the rest of Durban Westville. So I was, I was responsible for creating or driving the new reformed Faculty of Engineering, which was as a merger of the two faculties, there are lots of transformational changes dealing with the resistance to change, harmonization of resources, combining students, changing curriculum. That was a very big experience on my part. Then when I became DVC, the University, underwent to restructuring from a faculty model to a college model , and I was responsible for driving the research portfolio through that transformation. So I had gone through, if you like, experience of an institution that went through changes of the merger and then of the restructuring. So, when I came to Rwanda, it was almost a similar situation, because now we are looking at the merging of number of institution to colleges, and they had to run an institution, a new institution, from an old one. So that experience was very, very helpful for me

Joy Owango

Okay, so I’m curious to understand the role you played and your advantage point on the key motivations and objectives driving this ambitious restructuring program within the University of Rwanda, because at that point, it was the National University of Rwanda and then the with the seven colleges now . It has it was restructured into one Institute as the University of Rwanda. So what was your role in this process, and what, as a higher education leader, what should you look out for when you’re going through such kind of restructuring processes within your institution?

Prof. Ijumba

Okay, so the creation of the university of Rwanda went through two phases, right? The first phase was the committee that was appointed to look at the whole process on how it was to be done. They went all over the country, interviewed people, and finally they delivered a report, which was then approved by government. So I came in as part of phase two. We were appointed to implement now the recommendations of the report that was drawn by a team that was appointed by the government to look at the measure. So I was not part of phase one, okay, but I was part of phase two, where a team of leaders were appointed, and I was appointed as the Vice Chancellor responsible for Academic Affairs and research. We started in October 2013 but actually joined the university in January  2014,and my responsibility was really to look at the academic structure in terms of rationalization, harmonization. You need to remember that these the colleges that constituted the University of Rwanda were formally

fully fledged higher learning institution. Some were institutes. Others were universities, like you mentioned, the University of Rwanda, but there was SFB, there was an Institute for Agriculture, there was one for health, there was one for education. So these were, were actually like degree awarding institutions. Some of them were, many are using undergraduates. Others were doing a bit of research. But say it’s only the University of Rwanda that, I mean the Yeah, the National University of Rwanda, which was like a comprehensive university, writing degrees, post graduate training, and so we had this task of harmonization of the academic structure, and also the university mandate to be a research led University. So they took it out to increase productivity of postgraduate programs. And then also the issue of operations, making sure that it was an efficient University. Now, if you are aware of the University of Rwanda, it is spread over different parts of the country. Yes, it is. Colleges had programs on different campus, programs on different campuses. So it took a lot of energy and policy development and so to make sure that we operated and harmonized the institution, and that was the issue. But probably the biggest problem was looking at how to address fears of people in terms of resistance to change, Yeah. People are used to like NUR I took a long time. I remember in many meetings we had. The feature was when I was at the university, at the National University of Rwanda, when I was at SFB. So we had to get rid of these kind of sentiments, yes. And then even for students, there are people believe that, okay, the quality of the degree offered by the National University of Wanda was better than other other institutions. So we had to look at how to make sure to get all those, you know, those roles. So I must say, in terms of the staff and students, you can say there are three groups, okay, there are those who were progressive enough to accept the measure. They said, it’s a new thing, it’s a good thing. You are going to get a better institution. There are those who are totally opposed, And then you have the skeptics, who are probably the majority, who are like, let’s wait and see. They are. They are going with the flow, depending on what was happening. So we had to do a lot of meetings, a lot of communication, a lot of and the policy that we put in place, some of them had a lot of incentives and a lot of things that were going to be different from what was happening the previous institution. One of the biggest game change, I must say, was addressing the promotions policy, Because in many of the universities, of those institutions that were to emerge, promotions were really not very straightforward. So, and it was like you had to to it was, there are lots of there was a lot of unhappiness about the promotion in all the institutions that were matched. So you had to find a policy that addressed the issue of promotion. One of the problems was that, for example, when it came to publishing in the previous institutions, they were splitting points. So if you publish with 10 people, you got point one of the points, and that discouraged people from working together, Which means that it was not possible even for senior academics to work with young academics and publish with them. So there was a lot of individualism in terms of publishing, because people wanted to share their points. So the first thing we did in that policy of promotion, we said, If a part of a paper, you get in a point, whatever score is given to that paper you give, you get that score as well. And that really freed senior academics to work with young academics and publish with them. They promoted, I mean, it promoted collaboration, which I think was one of the major achievements of that promotions, of course, we put in other other measures to be able to promote research, if, if I can mention about research, first of all, yes, not, not many staff had PhDs. For example, at the time when the investor of Rwanda started, only about 14 or 15% of the staff had PhDs, right? So, and you can’t build a research university if you go such a low proportion of stuff, yes, you need at least 60, 65%. So secondly, as I mentioned, people are not publishing because, they didn’t know how to publish, or if they are publishing. It was not even known because people didn’t want to make it known that I’m publishing. There. Was no, there was no, what you may call the kind of vibrance you have in a research institution or university where people work together and publisher. So we had to put in policies to encourage people, or even force people to up to register for PhDs. Then those who had PhDs were not supervising. Actually, supervision was like a side show. People concentrated more in teaching than either postgraduate teaching or supervision. Okay, so we had to convince people, or compare people to supervise, and we realized that some of them didn’t want to supervise because they didn’t know how. So we could develop policies and also put in a training program to teach people how to supervise that made a big, a big difference, okay, in terms of people wanting out, supervised PhD, and we also made it part of the requirements PhDs provision they are part of the criteria for promotion, which also encourage. So our policies and procedures were like carrot and stick approach, encouraging, and if you are not encouraged, you are sort of sticked in a way that also helped. But I think the biggest challenge was also the fact that the investors spread all over the place, right? So things like I mentioned college which were operating on different campuses with different programs, it was difficult to but we managed to harmonize the curriculum so that people are following the same curriculum.

And then also, of course, when it came to meetings, we had to minimize traveling up and down, and we tried to introduce the online meetings to not possible. And if you recall the experience of many universities, the adoption of online processes came because of COVID, which accelerated the acceptance of online processes. So apart from also harmonizing and rationalizing curriculum, we had to modernize it, because some of the curriculum was very old, so there was a lot of curriculum transformation, which again contributed to the university improving a lot, yeah. So then if I can mention the challenges faced, to summarize, one was curriculum rationalization and harmonization, which was because, as I said, there are different institutions offering sometimes the same program, so we had to really rationalize the academic structure right and also harmonize where programs same programs they offered on the same campus. Then, of course, we introduced things like online teaching. We encourage teaching and also competence based learning to make sure that people learned in a different way.

We also introduced entrepreneurship and innovation into the curriculum, and even established center to support that, because of the fact that we wanted to produce students who are really ready or aware of what was happening in the in the community. Then, of course, I said with you, the post graduate programs was really not efficient to run, right as the system institutions didn’t have post graduate programs. Just concentrate on undergraduate teaching. Yes, those which had it depended very much on the lecturers. How many students supervise? How to When do they finish? So people sometimes took a long time right to get into that and really clean up the post graduate offerings, which also worked. And then, of course, for when I went to come when it came to official efficiency of efficient operation of the university, will look at mobility between campuses to minimize that management to meetings. Connectivity was very important. Internet connectivity to make sure that campus were properly connected, like and also library services were very important to have a good network, be able to have the same services on the different campuses right then when it came to improving research productivity, at look at staff, PhD supervision, capacity building, PhD enrollment and graduation, and also publication, capacity building, then change management, as I said, I mentioned that the three groups, but I think the key was communication, sharing information, having incentive in place, like I mentioned, the performance based promotion, and then also encouraging staff or facilitating staff to attend conferences abroad for exposure. And then, of course, those who publish or those who got grants, there’s some benefits from the research grants they attracted. And then, of course, a lot of our time was spent on developing policies and procedures to make sure that the institution operated in a very, harmonized manner. Now, the major not only challenges, it also dividends. Because of the things that we did. There are many benefits, actually, because, for example, yes, I was about to ask increased in 2013 2014 with about 8200 graduates. But by 2022 2023 by the way, I left the University of Rwanda in 2020 but of course, some of the changes that I mean, the benefits that we are carrying after 2020 was a result of what we did in in between there 2013 so by 2022 2023.with about 8900 graduates. Oh, my goodness, yes, there was an increase in PhD enrollment, in increasing PhD graduates. For example, in 2013 2014 we had only two PhD graduates. Last year, they were 38 so you can see the the increase then staff with PhDs. I mentioned around 2013 2014 that was about 15% now it’s over 30% that is good with PhDs and the research output was probably the biggest improvement in I’m sure you you also know, because you

Joy Owango

Yes, I remember, I also have prepared the report for that

Prof. Ijumba

So now, in 2010 before the merger, we had about 13.1 publications per million of population. Yes, but by 2021 he had gone to 67.6 almost an exponential and exponential increase. The other dividend, yes, it was that we got a lot of government support. Government was very supportive in terms of facilitation and also financing, but also the support of the government enabled us to attract donor funding. We got funded by like CEDA,

Cedar was probably the most comprehensible in terms of supporting research, teaching, learning, infrastructure, library, they are still continuing now, they university some center that you had. by the way, , the rest of one was the only one with four centers of excellence. AfDB also funded some research centers, and also the EAC and those research centers were very instrumental in in contributing to increase research productivity, because that is true. Yeah, they attracted talent for research. They trained PhD students and also master student. But also, because of the increase in research productivity, PhD students, staff confidence, it led to participation many international research networks. One of them is ARUA. University of Rwanda is a member of our African research university Alliance, which I think is a good thing. And also, University of Rwanda featured in the some of the rankings the web of universities. Yes, they’re improving a lot compared to other universities in the region. So, yeah, it had challenges. I think it was a good thing that the merger was formed, and despite the challenges, I think there are a lot of achievements which would not have been achieved if the higher education sector remained as fragmented as it was before, before the measure.

Joy Owango

Yeah, yeah. So I think, from what you’re sharing with me, and I’m actually honored to have been part of the journey towards the tail end of it is particularly when it came to highlighting the growth putting together the report on University of Rwanda’s performance research performance over the years, to the point that it had made it to the Weibo metrics rankings as one of the top 100 universities in Africa. But I feel that this was a strategic decision made by the government to make to have higher education as a contribution to not only the knowledge economy, but also as a as a way of revenue generation to the government through whether it is through national applications from researchers at the country level or at an internationalization level, and also, most importantly, to make, to turn the university into a research-intensive institution. So it is. It is something most governments are still struggling with, where  of some of the universities, are stuck  in the in the in the lens of just teaching and not also looking at teaching and conducting research, and because also, you know, out of research, you end up having innovations and commercialization. So there’s such a ripple effect on the contribution of when a university is made a research intensive institution. So that was a strategic decision made by the government. And I can actually see the I can see and understand why there was a bit of resistance, because they were for some of the stakeholders. Things were working. But you know, if you want to become, if you want to generate revenue from the university, teaching students is not enough. You need to have innovations coming out and commercialization coming out of it, but most importantly, also attracting some of the top funders who can also support the research. So this is the right it was a step in the right direction, but it’s quite interesting to see your involvement in this process. So by the time you retired, you took a break, and then you became the International Research and Innovation manager for Coventry universities Africa hub. Would you say that internationalization of higher education through such initiatives is considered a key priority for the Rwandan government. And if so, what strategic benefits and impacts does Rwanda aim to unlock through such efforts as what you’re doing with the Coventry University in Africa, in the Africa?

Prof. Ijumba

Thank you very much. Yeah, this was another opportunity to engage in, to be active in international

education or in higher education, in research and also in innovation. So when the opportunity arose, I took it, and it was even more attractive because it was the hub was based in Rwanda, where I had been, and it enabled me to continue engaging with the higher education sector now, not just in Rwanda, but also in Africa, South of Sahara. To come to back to your question, yes, Rwanda, I think the strategy of Rwanda is to be a hub of a number of things, whether it’s education, whether it’s health. And then you see that they are very efficient in support structures for IT, for conferences and so on. So they support the presence of institutions that are going to add value in to the higher education objectives, there are a number of institutions here which are working, apart from Coventry universities having a presence. We have, for example, the Carnegie Mellon University, right his sister campuses in the US, but based here, you have the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, AIMS. It is based here. You have also the African Leadership University. It is based in Kigali. And all these are international learning institutions. So they attract not only the best faculties, but they also attract students internationally. So you have now these institutions are also collaborating with local institutions. So already there is a cross culture of expertise of I mean culture in terms of people, and also knowledge and research capacity building For some of them, government supports students to go study there. They’ve also given them land to build for the carnage Melanie, ALU and also the AIMS. AIMS is also having having a piece of land to develop where they can establish themselves. In addition to this, you’ve got other universities. They’re from Uganda, the University of East Africa Kenya, is a Kenya, Mount Kenya University. It had a campus here for a long time, but now that campus has been turned into like a university that is associated with Mount Kenya university, but it has the name of Mount Kigali University It is still associated with MKU in Kenya, but now the only difference is that it is a fully fed University. I remember before students from the MKU campus in Rwanda used to go to Kenya for graduation. Now Mount Kigali university be awarding degrees, which I think is, but again, it is internationally initiated. So I mean, the government of Rwanda is supportive the presence of Ireland institutions from outside, as long as they comply with Higher Education Council requirements. T here’s no problem, but it is a big advantage because of the, said, cross coordination, not to just of cultures, but of the knowledge, research experience and so on. For example, I know like Carnegie Melon University has a research organization which is funding research for people in Rwanda and even outside. Okay? So it’s called Kigali Collaborative Research Center, And people are benefiting from that which wouldn’t have happened if, for example, it was outside. So it’s a good thing to bring in the international aspect in here. Now the Coventry University is collaborate with a number of institutions here, universal Rwanda, Rwanda Polytechnic, and even other organization, because you don’t just look at academics and research, you also look at innovation and enterprise. We participate in short courses and capacity building in terms of leadership training and so on. So it is, it is, it is the sort of an economic pattern in terms of development initiatives undertaken by different countries. And we operate, as I said, not just in Rwanda, but in South Africa, South of this area, but now we are mainly in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Nigeria, Mauritius, Ghana and South Africa.

Joy Owango

Okay, so it is safe to say that the government of Rwanda has a very strong particularly the Ministry of Higher Education, has a very strong internationalization strategy for its higher education sector, and it transcends on collaboration. You’re looking at transnational education. You’re looking at mobility as well. Okay with the, with the with the objective of making Rwanda a hub for regional and international education. Am I? Am I right in saying that,

Prof. Ijumba

You’re right. And also, when you have this kind of international high learning institutions, they they attract research they attract also a number of organizations, international organizations, which, when they’re here, they provide opportunities for these universities to do consultancy, to do research for them, which again, is of benefit to the to the to the country becomes, it becomes like a regional center for for knowledge, because of this interaction between higher learning institution and industries and other organizations in the country.

Joy Owango

Yeah, okay, so, as someone who has held prominent leadership positions across universities in multiple African countries, how have you approached the challenge of improving the quality of higher education in Africa while ensuring continental and global competitiveness? What are the critical focus areas and priorities you believe universities across Africa should emphasize to ensure this?

Prof. Ijumba

Okay? I think…first of all, for any university to be relevant, to be credible, it’s important that it aspires to produce graduates who are fit for purpose. So it means that the graduates that life conference must be recognized for being useful to the society, apart from being useful to themselves. Otherwise, as a university, you are not making impact, so you are irrelevant in terms of the community. So, so that’s the first thing is the university should aspire to do, then you should engage in a relevant and contextual and impactful research because then, if you are, you will be addressing problems that are pertinent in the community in the country. And therefore people seek your advice, and again, you become relevant. Thirdly, the university, because it’s a center for higher learning. They produce, they do research. It’s important for university to have innovation and enterprise agenda, and that has to be integrated in the curriculum so students are trained in that particular area, and even when they graduate, they continue with the same kind of learning, so that they support SME, they support governments and so on. And the other aspect, as a university, it’s important to engage in what we call continuous education programs. Okay, okay. It means that you are graduates who go out into the community they want to polish their knowledge, so you must have a feel at ease to come back and get more knowledge and interaction. Those graduates can also help you in shaping your curriculum so that it remains relevant. So having said that, what can they do? One of them, of course, is participation in networks, north, south, south, south. And for this, I have an example, for example. Now, ARUA, which I mentioned before, the

African research universities Alliance, is partnered with the guild, which is a group of universities in in Europe, and they are supporting centers of research excellence in a number of universities that are in Africa. So and also this, this collaboration involves universities from the north, and they are participating in research on public health, green transition, innovation, technology, and these areas happen to be also the research area. I mean the areas for support by EU, AU innovation agenda. So you can see there’s that universities tap into those networks. Nairobi is a member. Makerere is a member and  University of Rwanda is also a member of ARUA. They also universities in Ibadan, Ghana, all over all of Africa, in South Africa, as well as Stellenbosch , Cape Town. And because of this network, you find that the universities in Africa are able to engage one in research that is relevant to the to the communities, but also they are tapping on to the knowledge and expertise and different facilities that are available but from the universities in the north to be able to work together so that, in itself, leverage on the networks, be able to do research that is impactful globally. And then, of course, I mentioned the World Bank its funded centers of excellence in West Africa and Central Africa, in East Africa and southern Africa. And these were responsible for producing high quality research that is addressing problems that are relevant in the societies. But also, these centers are networking with other centers outside Africa, in Europe, in America and Australia. And again, there’s a there’s high quality research being generated from Africa through this collaboration. The other thing, which I think universities need to do to be relevant is having effective, and I emphasize on effective collaboration with industry, because if you are invested without any linkages with industry, again, it’s not you are not being impactful and not being relevant and through these collaborations, you can establish even technology parks, or even science parks, where industry and the university faculty can get together and students and do research which is relevant, and also, if you call it translational research, because it is research that is collaborating with industry to address problems that are relevant in the in the communities. And I know earlier mentioned, it’s important for universities to also have innovation apps and also introduce entrepreneurship into the curriculum. This is important because you’re actually enabling the young people who are bright minds, very innovative. You’re giving them opportunities to be to be innovative, but also carry their innovations forward, even when they go into the community. So it’s important that universities have innovation now. We have examples of this. Kenyatta University, innovation and business center is very important. University of Rwanda, Carnegie Mellon University, you go to Nelson Mandela, Africa, Institute of Science and Technology. So many, many universities that are getting into the fact that they want, they need to establish this innovation to give the young people an opportunity to be creative, innovative, and contribute to the addressing the problems that are relevant. But also another thing is that universities need to collaborate with the diaspora. Many people in the diaspora who originally were at universities in Africa, but now where they are. They’ve got networks. They have access to advance facilities. They’ve got even funding. So if we, we collaborate, there is an opportunity to benefit in terms of, first of all, you can access their expertise. They come short term lecturers, they supervise jointly. But some of them even raise funds to support equipment purchase, even building laboratories, and now, with the new technology of Metaverse, it is possible for students in Africa to experience laboratory condition or scenarios existing in Europe, in America, safe technology, which I think can be facilitated through the diaspora. So in that, with these initiatives, the universities remain relevant. They do research that’s relevant to the continent, but then with access to knowledge and facilities through the networks, they’re able to make impactful initiatives that are relevant to solving problem that are in the continent, but leveraging on international expertise, which I think is very, very useful.

Joy Owango

So now, as we wind up and as you also reflect on your career, what principles or mindsets would you impact on the next generation of academic leaders in Africa striving to drive transformative change within the higher education sector, or rather, within the higher education within their respective education institutions.

Prof. Ijumba

I think what, what, what we can say that is a fact. And even if looking at even 10,20, years back, there’s a lot of transformation in higher education, be it in curriculum, be it in the way of teaching, be it in research, be it in the relevance of the island institution and interaction with the societies. If you go back, universities even given this name of ivory towers, because they are sort of aloof. But now we are moving into a situation where universities actually want to be integrated in the society, so that they participate, they’re inclusive in trying to find solutions to the problem that in the society, they need to train students that are relevant so that transformation has happened. So if you’re a leader, when academic institution, you have to accept that you are going to face challenge in terms of having to address changes. So you need to be ready to lead an institution that is dynamic, that is not conservative, that is aware of the changes in the society, and be able to change to adapt to those changes. You should start produce an institution that is current and relevant to students in the community. Otherwise, you be left on the side. Secondly, I think it’s important for the leader of an institution to be proactive in exploring new opportunities for relevance and growth, which means is Important for a university to engage with national, regional and global development agendas, we talk of a 2063,we talk of SDGs, so an institution that is not aware of this, and therefore preparing children to be able to address these kind of agendas, I think, is highly irrelevant. And I don’t know if you’re aware, for example, universities like as part of addressing SDGs, you have the call it the SDS SDN network, this is Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which really enables universities to participate in the different aspects of SDGs, and now they address it, whether it’s green campuses, whether it is looking at how to address problems of energy use, energy efficiency, and they become exemplary in that case. So they you as a university must engage in those agendas, otherwise you be left by the waste-side. And then, of course, as a leader of an academic institution, you should not be scared of changes or transformation. These are, these are necessary, if they are necessary to be able to adapt to the changing situation. I think it’s important to to go with those ones. And maybe what I can say finally, that in any transformative space, if you are dealing with transformation, right, you need to be prepared to learn from each other. There are things which you know as the leader, but you can’t Lead alone. So you need to be able to communicate properly, be accommodative in such a way that people can be able to follow you in terms of where you want to lead the institution. So be communicating, be accommodative, and I think also in terms of leading the institution, be prepared to network and learn from others. In terms of shared experience, networks are very important. You can’t you can’t isolate yourself and think what you’re doing. So being member of these networks, like IUC is a network or association of African universities. Yeah, that’s a network. You have also SARUA is a network for universities in SADC. So these, these are there, but then also you have networks in Europe and so. So being part of those networks, you learn a lot other in academic leadership, in the university leadership, in terms of improving research problems. So it’s important not to isolate yourself as a leader, but I think it’s important also to be communicative and accommodative, because if you do that, you address the fears of people who are scared of changes among your staff.

Otherwise, it is, it is a journey. But I think it is a very interesting journey, because, you know, education is key, yes, and research is key, because without research, there’ll be no industrialization. There’ll be no so these, all these are universities. So these are very important aspects, universities are very important institution in terms of or even case, higher learning institutions are very important terms of

dealing with national agendas, global agendas, and educating the population at large, whether in the universities or even outside. Alright.

Joy Owango

Thank you so much. This has been a very interesting interview, and I’ve learned so much, especially when it comes to dealing with organizational change within the higher education sector, which I understand is quite tippee, and you are able to handle this very well in not one, but in two countries, one in South Africa, and which had also some historical challenges as well, and also now with Rwanda, with just the objective of making universities competitive. So thank you so much. This has been very enlightening, and I hope you will enjoy the rest of the podcast that you’ll be able to listen to from mazungumzo. Thank you so much, Professor,

Prof. Ijumba

yeah, okay for the invitation, and goodbye to you, and goodbye to the and thank you for the good job we are doing to promote capacity building and research and publication, TCC is doing a good job. Thank you very much.

Joy Owango.

Thank you so much for the support. Bye.

Outro:

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