Starting in 2018, the DAAD supports labour market and employability orientation of HEIs in Africa – “Entrepreneurial Universities in Africa (EpU)”.

High unemployment rates among university graduates are a major problem in many African countries. Higher education institutions could tackle the issue by focussing more on applied education, and by adjusting their teaching and research more closely to the needs of the labour market in general. Accordingly, there is high demand at many African universities to establish structures and offerings that are aligned with the needs of the labour market and thus offer better employment prospects for their graduates.

Goals and course of the program

The project´s reform measures aim at the promotion of entrepreneurial thinking, teaching and acting at the partner universities. Also institutional changes in the structures and offerings of the participating institutions are supposed to act as key indicators for the development towards “entrepreneurial universities”.

The pilot programme thus uses a self-assessment tool for entrepreneurial universities, developed jointly by the European Commission (EC) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): HEInnovate. This evaluation tool can be used by the institutions free of charge, to identify strengths and weaknesses with regard to qualifying as “entrepreneurial universities”.

The project inauguration in Kenya took place in July 2018, while the Call for Applications for Tunisia and Morocco was announced in June 2018, with the implementation phase scheduled to commence in May 2019. Here Capacity-building will take place in the frame of German-African university cooperation.

 

Supported by the