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Rote learning, interdepartmental turf fighting and chronic underinvestment had become pronounced characteristics of African tertiary education. Turok chose to confront them head-on, in order to shake up the further education system from top to bottom. “The beauty of doing something in Africa is that you see all the systemic problems that you see in universities worldwide,” he explains. “The difference here is that in Africa they’re multiplied by a factor of 100, so they become absolutely blindingly obvious. Universities are extremely ivory tower. The relevance of the students’ education to what they will ultimately be doing when they graduate is minimal. So these problems kind of hit us in the face when working in Africa, and we had no option but to do something radically different.
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In search of Africa’s Einstein (Wired UK) +1
» first mobile payments, now education - the innovations will come from places like Africa who aren’t wedded to failing, legacy industrial-era models…
