Wednesday 28 February 2018

Mauritius as an Education Hub Roundtable - Some Reflections

There were about 10 panelists including 4 Ministers with Australian counterparts on the theme of “Mauritius as an Education Hub”. The meeting was chaired by Raj Makoond and a number of officials from Ministries and Parastatal bodies attended the meeting. First of all this was a nice initiative…on a Sunday !

The different presenters talked about either Government Policies, or institutional strategies that are being put in place to promote Mauritius as an education hub. The Australian counterparts talked about how Universities from Australia and Mauritius could collaborate. One of the talks that impressed me was the one from Mat, the CEO of DUCERE who spoke mainly about disruption in education, highlighting the collaboration of DUCERE with University of Mauritius and laying emphasis on the possibilities for the Mauritius Education Sector to grow and conquer the African market. The Director of TEC also laid emphasis on Quality Education and Quality Assurance and Regulations.

One key question which was not covered and which is a very simple one was -What is an Education Hub? What do we mean when we talk of our country as an Education Hub? Remember Education hub concept in Mauritius has been a fashion frenzy word since 2009 when there was a Ministry looking after Tertiary Education. The concept in fact during the period 2009-2014 caused much harm to Mauritius as a potential education destination.

The second reflection I had was the following (in the form of a question): Can we equate quality in higher education to more strict regulatory frameworks? This brings us back to the TEC, a much disputed institution prior to 2015. However, we must admit that the current Minister and the newly appointed Director Prof Nair have brought some sense of stability and credibility to this institution. Two key questions, intrinsically linked to each other. 
 
SO what is an education hub? Why would our dear friends from Australia wish that Mauritius becomes an education hub? Will that not compete with them after all? Figures would show us how important the education “industry” is to the US, UK and Australia when it comes to exporting it to other regions as a commodity. Now Asian countries are joining the race – Malaysia, India, and China are all the new big players in the field. Student migration data clearly illustrate the positioning of the Asian countries. However, many of these countries do lack what we have – Bilingualism, our proximity to Africa and our ancestral link with India including other factors such as our political stability, and more and more, our country being now seen as the “Mauritian” dream for many Africans, Indians, and Bangladeshis… who would want to elect our country as a 2nd domicile at all cost. You do get the message, yes. There are risks also out there. The other issue is how do we become this hub? Empower our own institutions ? Can they be up to the level? Are they attractive enough to the international student community? Or do we maintain the trend of getting the big guns in the country to the detriment of our public institutions? This could be a good strategy though if we were to be looking at reducing public spending and creating institutions of average level which often do not contribute enough. Do we then merge the main public institutions in one mega University as France is doing? Strategy and a Grand vision is key here, otherwise our higher education sector can face real issues. Unless as I said, looking at the bigger sphere, might lead us to try to become an Education, Research& Innovation hub all at once, where the legislative framework would require that private foreign institutions have to invest into Research and Innovation programs and not only contend to deliver training and courses, make money and then pull out currency from the country. 
 
Coming to the second question, this is an area where the Higher Education Bill is very interesting. It separates the QA function from the regulatory process. The regulatory process is linked mainly with the legal framework in place, and ensuring that institutions willing to operate in Mauritius comply with these. Often such processes and due diligence have been equated to quality assurance. Quality Assurance is key to Mauritius becoming that much awaited education hub, and QA has to become the trademark for our Universities. A trademark that has to be preserved and seen to be preserved (reference here to the Quality Assurance Agency to be setup) so that our Universities keep striving for continuous improvement. This has to be their main selling point. Then, instead of competing with each other, they could contemplate the concept of co-opetition where the collaborate while engaging in a healthy competition linked to the pursuit of their own excellence and QA trademark.

The polemic surrounding University Ranking of UniRank (4icu.org) : The case of UoM being 85th in the African Top 100

This is an interview I gave to the News on Sunday paper that appeared on 26th July 2020. 1. There is a controversy about the ranking of ...