Internationalising Higher Education

One of the main factors inhibiting the rapid growth of African economies is the lack of adequate technical and business skills. The development of specific skills in the education and health sectors is critical if progress is to be made towards the Millenium Development Goals. Education partnerships have traditionally been in higher education. To date, few such partnerships have been in further education or skills development. Can the development of such partnerships help support skills development? What can be learned from the higher education experience? What are the benefits to both partners? Is their main value simply to access funds made available by international development agencies, or are there other
inherent benefits? Can they include longerlasting improvements in institutional capacity? This session will comprise two presentations,
one from an African further education perspective and one from a UK perspective, followed by an interactive discussion forum.
The overall objective is to allow participants to share knowledge and experience and to help bridge the knowledge gap and build
a dialogue between further education institutions in the UK and Africa.