The Challenge of Change in Africa's Higher Education in the 21st ...

What is the significance of the other steps to the right of the assessment grid/column in figure 1.3? The direct and indirect assessment data so obtained ought to be reviewed by at least five major stakeholders: an undergraduate business curriculum and assessment committee (UBCAC), its graduate-level counterpart (GBCAC), relevant faculty, the dean, and relevant HoDs. Ultimately, figure 1.3 shows that the major aim of AoL and assessment is course, program, and curriculum improvement and enhancement of student learning overall. Stated differently, the main trends to be identified, as demonstrated by figure 1.3, are improvements in courses, programs, and curricula, as reflected in high-quality graduates from African universities.

Internship Programs: Rationale and Relevance

The academic and professional literature is rich in debate and discussion surrounding student internships––controlled experiential learning opportunities in which a student receives academic credit while employed by an organization in a chosen area of interest (Swift & Kent, 1999). St. Amant (2003), for instance, argued that in order to improve technical communication, both educators and internship providers need to find ways to structure internship experiences in a way that benefits all three stakeholder groups—students, companies, and institutions. To this end, St. Amant (2003) advocated an internship schema with the following ingredients: (a) the job description or requisite skills a student will bring to the internship; (b) the kinds of skills the student will develop as a result of the internship process; (c) the kinds of feedback, suggestions, or criticisms the intern will give to educators and internship providers so that each group can improve its expectations of and training for student-interns; and (d) students' evaluation of how the internship contributed