Side Event

Tuesday 27^th March

Lunchtime 12.30-14.00

Room: MH3, Kigali Convention Centre

Opening remarks on Rwanda’s strategy in becoming a technology and innovation hub, highlighting key aspects of its policies regarding areas such as development of qualified faculty and how this impacts on Higher Education.

Speaker:  Hon. Dr Eugene Mutimura, Minister of Education, Rwanda

Presentation:

“Join up, inspire, inform, focus, impact”: An introduction to ESSA

Speakers:
Uta-Micaela Dürig, Vice Chair of the Board of Management,
Robert Bosch Foundation and Trustee of ESSA

Patrick Dunne, Chair, Education Sub Saharan Africa (ESSA)

Panel discussion:

‘Demographics of Faculty in Higher Education in Africa’

Moderator: Milton Nkosi, BBC Africa

Panellists:

Prof Etienne Ehile, Secretary General, Association of African Universities (AAU)

Prof Mohammed Salifu, Executive Secretary, National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE)

Prof Jonathan Mba, Director of Research & Academic Planning, Association of African Universities (AAU)

Dr Olaf Hahn, Director, Education Sub Saharan Africa (ESSA)

Join us for an insight into the work of Education Sub Saharan Africa (ESSA), a new initiative in African Education with the aim to ‘join up, inform, inspire, focus and increase impact’ for everyone investing in education in sub-Saharan Africa. With an initial focus on Higher Education, ESSA has started, as one of its key activities, to co-create a globally relevant African Knowledge Hub on education, responding to one of the key objectives of the African Union’s Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016-25 to build and enhance capacity for data collection, management, analysis and communication.

Through a panel discussion, ESSA will also introduce one of its programmes: ‘Demographics of Faculty in Higher Education in Africa’.  With an anticipated expansion of enrolment in Higher Education, countries and universities need to be able to ensure there are sufficient faculty with relevant expertise in anticipated growth areas available. It is the intention of The Association of African Universities (AAU, www.aau.org), together with ESSA and the Population Reference Bureau (PRB, www.prb.org) in Washington DC, to create, in the next decade, a comprehensive continentally relevant system that models anticipated growth, projects faculty needs by specialization and informs training and development plans at a systems level.

In partnership with Ghana’s National Council on Tertiary Education (http://ncte.edu.gh), AAU and ESSA have launched a pilot for this initiative in Ghana. The Event will present and discuss this pilot in a panel discussion involving a high representative of Ghana, the Secretary General of the AAU and the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), Washington DC, one of the most distinguished demographic research centres globally.

Register your interest to attend: info@essa-africa.org

Time: 10:00am – 11:15am
Organiser: SciDev.Net with the support of Robert Bosch Stiftung

Lead: Nick Perkins, Lead Technical Advisor (Development Communication and Extension) at CABI

This forum will bring together editors from a number of leading regional media titles to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing science journalism in Africa. The discussion will consider the media industry in Africa’s relationship with the scientific community, and explore the collective challenges faced by those seeking to communicate science to their readers.

The forum will take the structure of an informal round table discussion, together with a small audience of twenty interested observers. Steered by Nick Perkins, a professional with more than twenty years’ experience working with media across the globe, participants will be encouraged to share experiences, discuss common barriers to scientific journalism, and identify opportunities to facilitate better media-science collaboration. To register interest in being a member of the audience, please email Sarah Hebbes at info@scidev.net

Editors attending:

David Aduda, Head of Business Development and Partnerships, Nation Media Group

Haruna Idris, Deputy Director Current Affairs and Special Assistant to the Director General, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (Radio Nigeria)

Juliet Masiga, Peace and Security Editor, The Conversation Africa

Andrew Meldrum, Acting Africa Editor, The Associated Press

Fulgence Sene, Editor and Head of Translation Desk, African Press Agency

Other names to be confirmed.

Identifying barriers and Opportunities to improve the State of Young Scientists in Africa

Lead: Global Young Academy

Time: 7:30am – 8:30 am

The global state of young scientists (GLOSYS) studies grew out of the desire of the Global Young Academy (GYA) members to compare and draw attention to the unique challenges faced by young scientists across the globe. The GYA now conducts regional studies to explore these issues more deeply and within a regional context; with the Africa study report due to be published in late 2018. Particular themes of interest for the GloSYS Africa project are young scientists’ motivations to enter research, support mechanisms, access to mentoring, scientific productivity and challenges faced as well as funding, mobility, issues of “brain drain”, and gender inequities within the higher education/research environment. With the knowledge gained through this study, the GYA and collaborating researchers will develop evidence-based policy recommendations that highlight the ways in which young scientists can be better supported in their research efforts and career development.

During the NEF Global Gathering 2018, the GYA will hold a workshop to present the goals and successful outcomes of the previous GloSYS studies and present interim results of the Africa study. The participants will discuss tangible recommendations to improve the research environment and enhance the career trajectory of early career researchers on the continent, to entice researchers to the continent and to develop an attractive career path for the next generation of young African scientists.