The Lynch School of Education (LSOE) will soon be the focus of international attention as two of its scholars prepare to take the helm of the first publication on higher education in Africa.
The Journal of Higher Education in Africa (JHEA) is an outgrowth of the effort of two Lynch School scholars to publish a comprehensive book on the subject. Entitled African Higher Education: An International Reference Book, the thousand-page publication will be available this spring by Indiana University Press.
"As the lead researcher and co-director of the project to publish the book, it occurred to me that there was a great need to create a central and appropriate forum to discuss and debate higher education issues in Africa," said Damtew Teferra, a research associate who will be the editor-in-chief of the journal and LGSOE '03. "After I approached Philip Altbach [Monan professor of higher education and director of the Boston College Center of International Education] with the idea of launching a journal of higher education in Africa, the initiative started with earnest. The idea came to a successful fruition after long, persistent, and engaging negotiations and work by both of us."
Funded by a three-year, $550,000 grant from various educational foundations which include the Ford, Rockefeller, and MacArthur Foundations, as well as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Teferra hopes that the journal will generate interest that will attract additional funding after the grant runs out in 2006.
In its first issues, the journal will address higher education policies, gender issues, the significance of HIV/ AIDS, development, information and communication technology, academic freedom, and funding and financing higher education in Africa.
"Many research studies and reports on African higher education remain largely unpublished or are only privately printed and therefore exist as 'gray' literature," said Teferra. "The JHEA will offer an outlet for the best of this material and disseminate it to the widest possible audience quickly and efficiently, thus providing a key service to the community of researchers, scholars, administrators, and the like."
The journal, to be published quarterly, comes at a pivotal moment for higher education in Africa as the continent deals with technological advancement and globalization.
"African universities face a multitude of problems that seriously constrain the continent from emerging as a competitive player in the era of globalization," said Teferra, an Ethiopian native. "We are hopeful that the journal will be instrumental in bringing the issues that constrain and undermine, as well as revitalize and enhance, the development of universities in Africa."
For the first three years, the JHEA will be published and edited in Boston. Editorial responsibilities will shift to collaborators at the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) based in Dakar, Senegal in 2006, but Teferra does not foresee any major transitional problems.
"Our partners at CODESRIA in Dakar were part of the initiative from the outset," said Teferra. "We have an editor-in-chief and an editor in both institutions. We are working with them closely. We keep them informed of the activities taking place here at Boston College and consult their input regularly. We are hopeful that this working arrangement will help smooth the transition."
"It's an extraordinary opportunity to build the educational infrastructure of these countries," said Mary Brabeck, dean of the Lynch School of Education. "There are always challenges in this work, but I think Damtew Teferra and Phil Altbach are the right people and the Center for International Higher Education is exactly the right place to get this started."
Teferra echoed Dean Brabeck's sentiments. "The prestige of an institution is gauged, among others, by the presence of knowledge creation forums on its campus. The publishing of a journal at an institution gives the institution a highly needed visibility and reputation. The publication of this journal will give BC an international visibility to scholars, researchers, students, and higher education administrators all over the world."
Copies of the journal will be distributed to universities and appropriate ministries in Africa for free, Teferra said. It will be sold on a subscription basis in Europe and the United States.
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