Africa: Stakeholders Organise PAU Fund-Raising Luncheon

By Eric Sande

ADDIS ABABA— Representatives of African Union Member States, international organizations, partners, private sectors as well as eminent African philanthropists will be meeting Tuesday, January 31 at the New African Union Headquarters Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to raise funds in a bid to generate awareness of the newly launched Pan African University (PAU).

Organized by the Commission of Human Resources, Science and Technology (HRST) of the African Union Commission (AUC), the fundraising luncheon is intended to further spread awareness on the role of the Pan-African University in the development of the educational sector in the Africa.

The African Union Commission proposed in 2008 the creation of PAU.  The PAU involves the promotion, networking and development of programmes and research centres within selected existing high quality universities in the five geographic sub-regions, namely: Northern, Western, Eastern, Central Northern and Southern Africa.

Each sub-region will host a thematic component of the PAU which will be committed to select and to network high quality centres developing similar programmes and to serve as a coordinating hub for those institutions.

Education is the most important tool for equipping African peoples with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitude to be able to drive this vision. Quality Higher education in particular is imperative if Africa has to attain this vision, generate home-grown solutions to African challenges according to the NEPAD philosophy; and participate fully in the global knowledge economy.

This is the reason why the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the African Union launched the Second Decade of Education for Africa which identifies tertiary level education as one of the seven priorities to be focused on for the time period 2006-2015. Meanwhile, worldwide programmes and projects such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Education for All (EFA) only emphasized on basic education, on Universal primary education.