Making the university more international: An exploration of higher education internationalisation strategies in Africa from a continental perspective
| dc.contributor.author | Nabaho, Lazarus | |
| dc.contributor.author | Turyasingura, Wilberforce | |
| dc.contributor.author | Twinomuhwezi, Ivan Kiiza | |
| dc.contributor.author | Kiiza, Kenneth Alfred | |
| dc.contributor.author | Nabukenya, Margaret | |
| dc.contributor.author | Andama, Felix Adiburu | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-04-19T06:04:47Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-04-19T06:04:47Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-06-30 | |
| dc.description | This study examines strategies for African universities to enhance global engagement through partnership development, increased student and staff mobility, curriculum alignment, and collaborative research. These strategies improve institutional quality, competitiveness, and knowledge exchange between institutions. The research supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4, 17, and 9 by improving higher education quality and relevance, fostering international academic partnerships, and promoting knowledge production and innovation. The findings also align with Uganda’s National Development Plan IV, especially in strengthening human capital, advancing research and innovation, and internationalizing higher education to support social and economic development. | |
| dc.description.abstract | Internationalisation is one of the contemporary issues in the higher education (HE) academic and policy discourses. Since the 1990s, scholarship on the internationalisation of HE has burgeoned. Nevertheless, the internationalisation of HE in Africa is relatively under-researched. Using the African Quality Rating Mechanism (AQRM), an education framework of the African Union, this article explores the approaches to the internationalisation of HE in Africa. A qualitative descriptive design underpinned the study and the data was analysed using content analysis. The findings show that the AQRM comprises five dominant Eurocentric HE internationalisation strategies: student and faculty mobility, academic mobility, international research collaboration, dissemination of research at international conferences, and curriculum internationalisation. However, despite the similarity in the form, the substance of the internationalisation shows that attempts have been made to decolonise the Anglo-Saxon models of internationalisation. It can therefore be concluded that: (a) mobility (of persons and programmes), the elitist version of internationalisation, is integral to most internationalisation practices in the AQRM; (b) the AQRM was designed within the framework of the decolonial lens which repudiates the dominant colonial conception that what qualifies to be “international” must be associated with Europe and North America; and (c) political and academic rationales dominate the internationalisation discourse at the continental level. | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Nabaho, L., Turyasingura, W., Twinomuhwezi, I. K., Kiiza, K. A., Nabukenya, M., & Andama, F. A. (2025). Making the university more international: An exploration of higher education internationalisation strategies in Africa from a continental perspective. Tuning Journal for Higher Education, 12(1). | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2386-3137 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://dir.muni.ac.ug/handle/20.500.12260/955 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | University of Deusto | |
| dc.subject | Internationalisation | |
| dc.subject | Strategies | |
| dc.subject | Collaboration | |
| dc.subject | Regionalisation | |
| dc.subject | Harmonisation | |
| dc.subject | Mobility | |
| dc.subject | Curriculum internationalisation | |
| dc.title | Making the university more international: An exploration of higher education internationalisation strategies in Africa from a continental perspective | |
| dc.type | Article |