NAIROBI, March 15 — African education experts began a two-day meeting in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, Thursday to discuss ways of enhancing student mobility within the East African Community (EAC), a regional bloc. The East African Community Students’ Mobility Scholarships Forum brought together more than 100 vice chancellors as well as representatives from ministries responsible for higher education within the EAC to review ways to promote the exchange of students and higher education staff in the bloc. In his opening remarks, Gaspard Banyankimbona, the executive secretary of the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), an institution of the EAC, said that operationalization of the EAC common higher education area will facilitate the seamless transfer of students from one educational institution in the region to another. “The EAC is currently developing a legal framework to ensure education systems allow for the recognition of academic certificates across the region,” said Banyankimbona, noting that student mobility is one avenue to increase regional integration by allowing the movement of skills and labor within the bloc.
Idris Rai, the deputy executive secretary of the IUCEA, said that the East Africa qualifications framework will provide a channel for the comparability of education systems across the region, which will simplify the movement of students in East Africa. Rai noted that the EAC has already designed benchmarks for higher education curricula for popular courses such as medicine, agriculture, education and information communications and technology. Henry Alinaitwe, acting deputy vice-chancellor of Makerere University, which is one of the oldest universities in East Africa, said that the mutual recognition of education qualifications will facilitate student mobility and hasten the implementation of the EAC common market protocol. Alinaitwe said that student mobility will also increase the internationalization of universities in the region, which enhances the reputation of higher education institutions.
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