| Chapter 1: | Africa's 21st-Century Renaissance in Higher Education: The Need for Strategic Planning |
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- • Changing student demographics, male-female student ratios, and the rural-urban divide in much of Africa.
- • Government pressure for more accountability, especially for the many universities in Africa that are largely, if not exclusively, government funded
- • General environmental uncertainty, making it imperative for African universities to think and act strategically.
Ultimately, the major benefit of formal strategic planning is to get institutions better at what they do: quality teaching, research, and service. To the extent that strategic management obligates institutions to get input and views from key stakeholders (students, alumni, employers, and advisory boards) during a SWOT analysis, this gives them the best avenue to assess the relevance of their curricula and course content as it relates to emerging needs and trends in the specializations on offer. An understanding of external realities (major opportunities and threats) against their internal situation (major strengths and weaknesses) assists universities in forming a vision for the future. Such foresight is critical toward initiating competent programs or replacing redundant, irrelevant programs or courses with innovative or relevant ones. In a typical business school, therefore, the strategic management process emphasizes a real commitment to what is known as the “continuous improvement paradigm.” We present a comprehensive strategic management process later in this section of the chapter.
Where Do Strategic Educational Goals
Need to be Set?
There are many areas in which institutions of higher learning need to set goals, objectives, action steps (e.g., strategies to achieve the goals and objectives), time lines, and key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are quantitative or qualitative targets to indicate used to measure whether goals and objectives have been achieved. Chief among the typical