Africa’s Higher-Education Reform: A Call to Unlock Young Talent

Public-health expert Dr John Nkengasong, executive director for education at the Mastercard Foundation, argues that Africa’s future hinges on treating higher education as a national investment rather than a peripheral social service. He says universities must move beyond theory-based curricula to teach graduates how to influence policy, drive research, and address the continent’s socioeconomic challenges.

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Nkengasong traces the disconnect between universities and employers to colonial-era curricula that have remained largely unchanged. He adds that structural adjustments imposed by the International Monetary Fund in the 1980s forced many governments to prioritize debt repayment over higher-education spending, leaving institutions functioning as “high-school-plus” centres that produce few researchers or scientists.

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• Africa’s population is the world’s youngest, with about 70 % under age 30.

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• The share of graduates from higher education rose from roughly 4.5 % in 2000 to 9 % in 2021, a doubling that is expected to continue at a similar pace.

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• The Africa Workforce Readiness Survey 2025 found that around 50 % of employers rate recent graduates’ employability as very good or excellent.

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• A study by South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council tracking over 500 graduates reported that only 16 % transitioned smoothly into stable employment within five years.

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• Sub-Saharan governments currently spend 3.6 times more on debt service than on education.

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• The Africa Higher Education for Transformation prize announced a $500 million fund to support 150 universities over the next decade.

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• The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which killed nearly 3,500 people, is cited as a crisis that could have been mitigated with stronger local research capacity.

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He calls for immediate political will and financing to align university programmes with labour-market needs, and to create African research hubs capable of producing vaccines and diagnostics. He stresses that such systemic change will take a generation but must begin now to secure health sovereignty and economic stability.

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• “No modern or ancient country has developed without a strong higher education system driving research, innovation and critical thinking,” — Nkengasong, public health expert

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• “We need to actually look at our problems and see what higher education can contribute to [fixing] that.” — Nkengasong, public health expert

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