CHET's Higher Education Reasearch and Advocacy Network in Africa project (HERANA) set out to investigate the relationship between African higher education and economic development, as well as the relationship between higher education and democracy in Africa.

The findings have been published in a series of papers and reports. University World News canvassed several prominent academics as well as those involved in the project for their responses to the project and its findings.

South Africa’s National Planning Commission published its National Development Plan: Vision for 2030 last month. Higher education was barely mentioned in the previous plan, but this time it is afforded a prominent role. Here, three of the academics who shaped the new vision’s higher education input describe on the University Wolrd News website the research, thinking and goals behind the plan, which will inform higher education policy in the years to come.

South Africa's National Planning Commission (NPC) published its National Development Plan: Vision 2030 on Friday 11 November 2011.

The Plan makes several proposals regarding the transformation of higher education in South Africa, many drawn from the NPC-commissioned paper by Dr Nico Cloete (Director, CHET) and Nasima Badsha (CEO, CHEC).

CHET has published the case study reports which contain the detailed data and analysis for each of the eight countries and universities studied as part of the HERANA project's research on the relationship beween higher education and development in Africa.

In the most recent issue of the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning's newsletter (vol. XXIX no. 2), Nico Cloete, CHET Director, writes on the need to focus more on post-school investment...

CHET has become part of a comparative research project on informational development and human development with the participation of researchers from the University of Southern California, the Aalto University in Helsinki, the University of Costa Rica, and the University of California-Berkeley. A joint STIAS/CHET seminar was held to start investigating how South African development processes and development policies relate to the analytical approach.

Higher Education South Africa (HESA) commissioned CHET to facilitate a historic workshop between the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), the Department of Science and Technology (DST), and university vice-chancellors. The meeting resulted in a remarkable level of agreement amongst the usually discordant vice-chancellors.

CHET and UNESCO participated in a seminar to present and discuss the findings emanating from Phase 1 of CHET's Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA) in Paris on Wednesday 16 March 2011.

CHET's online performance indicator data for South African universities has been updated to include the most recent HEMIS data. Click here to view the data.

University World News reports that the South African government has launched a series of economic programmes aimed at achieving the growth and redistribution goals of the ruling African National Congress. The New Growth Path is the latest. It has drawn sharp criticism for an unrealistic presumption that the state has the capacity to initiate and administer large-scale structural changes in the economy. This misapprehension applies equally to education and skills training.

University World News reports that CHET's Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa, HERANA, has gathered the most comprehensive and systematic data on a group of Sub-Saharan African universities ever compiled.

Findings from a CHET study on the relationship between democracy and higher education reveal attitudes towards leadership and democracy at two African universities.

Development aid from donor countries to Africa is usually directed to issues identified as priorities in the home country's development agenda - issues such as HIV and Aids, poverty reduction, primary health care and food security, among others. This kind of focus is often at the expense of high-level knowledge development such as that produced within the research culture of universities. But, according to Peter Maassen, professor of higher education at the University of Oslo, the neglect of knowledge in development cooperation with sub-Saharan African countries can jeopardise the impact of development cooperation in the targeted areas.

Almost 16 years after 1994, at the Higher Education Summit of the Minister, a broad spectrum of the South African higher education community accepted differentiation as strategy to bring greater diversity and mission for purpose into the system.

The research reflected in Responding to the Educational Needs of Post-School Youth indicates that in South Africa there are almost three million youth between the ages of 18 and 24 who are not in education, training or employment – a situation which points not only to a grave wastage of talent, but also to the possibility of serious social disruption.

Nico Cloete comments critically on the CHE's recently published The State of Higher Education (2009).

Lidia Brito, CHET board member, has been appointed as the head of the science policy division at UNESCO.

One of the five most cited social scientists in the world, Prof. Castells visited South Africa as part of project to develop an approach to strengthening social theory and PhD training, particularly in the social sciences and humanities.

The report describes the deliberate dismantling of institutional
structures and procedures which then has a curious ‘double’ effect,
namely simultaneous centralisation and decentralisation. The outcome of this process is a complex relationship between the university and the community.

The report investigates the causes of disruption on the Mafikeng
campus of North West University, the goals and objectives of the merger, the efficacy of governance structures and levels of social cohesion. The authors argue that the fundamental cause of the “disruptions, instability and discontent” at the Mafikeng campus is the collapse of the academic project.

Leading intellectuals in South Africa and abroad tackle the topic of ‘Race and South African universities’, examining questions that have been missed in the media and exploring issues of racism on campuses.

"While we have no quarrel with certain elements of a traditional role of a university, we can all agree that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake has been found wanting."

In late 2007, as part of its 10th anniversary celebrations, CHET hosted a seminar in Cape Town on differentiation in African tertiary education - or more accurately, the lack of it. This is a problem hampering human development and preventing access to and the production of the range of skills across a variety of fields, types and levels that the continent needs to support its rapidly growing economies.

The Association of African Universities (AAU) has announced the appointment of Professor Goolam Mohamedbhai, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mauritius, as the new Secretary-General of the Association of African Universities. The appointment takes effect on 1st August 2008.

On 2 October 2008, CHET hosted a dinner-seminar with Professor Hans Weiler to discuss the topic "National Unification, Global Competition and Institutional Reform: The Dynamics of Change in Higher Education". In his presentation, he poses the question: "Is the ‘luxury of ambivalence’ sustainable in the contemporary university?"