Despite a low enrollment rate in higher education of 3 percent on average, in comparison with 8 percent in countries with comparable levels of development, Francophone African countries are currently facing an immense challenge in terms of numbers. The increased social demand associated with the progress made in universal primary enrollment and the increase in secondary enrollment could cause the student population to grow from 800,000 in 2004 to approximately 2 million in 2015, and to double the coverage. This increase exacerbates the financial problems of higher education institutions and mi.

Virtually all countries in the world are struggling to provide the necessary resources to Higher Education. The challenges are particularly complex for economically poor countries in Africa, which have recorded massive expansion in the past decade. This book analyzes the state of funding and financing higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Public systems of higher education worldwide are caught between increasing public and private demand for their products, rising per-student costs, and flat or even declining governmental revenues. Thus, the fundamental condition of higher education, especially in the low and middle income countries, is dominated by the radically diverging trajectories of higher education costs and available governmental revenues, underscoring the worldwide search for other-than-governmental revenue sources for higher education. This is the higher educational austerity rationale for cost-sharing--which term reflects both the simple fact that the underlying costs of higher education are shared by governments (or taxpayers), parents, students, and philanthropists, as well as a description of a worldwide policy trend of these costs being increasingly shifted from governments to parents and students. The underlying theory of cost-sharing as well as the description of its worldwide reach were developed from 1986 through 2006 mainly by the works of Johnstone and his Ford Foundation financed International Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The principal papers from this project are reproduced in this volume. They examine the worldwide shift in the burden of higher education costs from governments and taxpayers to parents and students, and the policies of grants, loans and other governmental interventions designed to maintain higher educational accessibility in the face of this shift.

The training and development of human capital in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) will help countries in the region diversify their economies, carry out economic transformation, and support sustainable growth. Higher education plays a key role in training qualified individuals who will be able to implement new technologies and use innovative methods to establish cost-efficient and effective enterprises and institutions. However, in order for SSA to reap the benefits of this investment in human capital, higher education institutions must secure financing to provide quality training and sound professional prospects to their students. Currently, tertiary education development is unsustainable resources per student are declining and the quality of education is affected. These issues are particularly pressing in times of financial global crisis, when available resources for tertiary education tend to diminish. The impact of the crisis that started in 2008 provides a clear illustration of the need to explore innovative ways to diversify and secure financing for higher education in SSA. 'Financing Higher Education in Africa' provides a comprehensive overview of higher education financing in SSA. The book begins with an explanation of the fundamental problems faced by higher education institutions and students in SSA, namely the combined pressure of a rapid growth in demand and a growing scarcity of public resources, and it presents the dramatic consequences of these trends on quality. The book then turns to analyzing and comparing the current funding policies in SSA countries and it provides recommendations for improvement. Finally, the book examines the alternatives to the status quo and the policy tools needed to both diversify resources and allocate them based on performance. It will be of great interest to governments, universities, research institutions, and international organizations throughout the region.

This volume highlights the proceedings of the two policy dialogue conferences held by the Working Group on Finance and Education (WGFE) in 2004. Part I of the document discusses the endemic crisis that higher educationhas been beset with since the outset of the post colonial period in Africa. It highlights the critical state of higher education systems in Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal by scrutinizing the causes, manifestations and consequences of the crisis to posit useful recommendations and possible solutions. Part II is a comprehensive review of the challenges facing the financing and planning of all levels and types ofeducation - from kindergarten to graduate school - in selected African countries. The papers reveal the sources and mechanisms of funding education in Africa, drawing attention to the experiences of communities confronted with new funding sources. A new trend, which consists of designing decade long educational development plans, has emerged and is rapidly expanding in numerous African countries. This experience is examined and shared by the authors. This book has contributions in both French and English.

This nine-country study of higher education financing in Africa includes three East African states (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda), five countries in southern Africa (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa), and an Indian Ocean island state (Mauritius). Higher Education Financing in East and Southern Africa explores trends in financing policies, paying particular attention to the nature and extent of public sector funding of higher education, the growth of private financing (including both household financing and the growth of private higher education institutions) and the changing mix of financing instruments that these countries are developing in response to public sector financial constraints. This unique collection of African-country case studies draws attention to the remaining challenges around the financing of higher education in Africa, but also identifies good practices, lessons and common themes.