Portrait photo of Love Ekenberg.
Love Ekenberg, professor at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University.

Love Ekenberg, a professor at Stockholm University and ICDE Chair for Massive Scale Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, explains that higher university education must be made more accessible to cater to new groups of students and not exclude groups from education and lifelong learning. This change in student backgrounds posts new challenges for global higher education.

- Universities must prepare students for being citizens of a global society. They must furthermore play a part in strengthening international and regional cooperation, fairness and intellectual as well as socio-economic development.

- In an effort to be competitive in a global marketplace, curricula must be applicable to local teaching in other countries and cultures, and the global reality must be brought into the framework of teaching in local institutions.

Love Ekenberg explains further what is essential is that we need to rethink how universities teach their students in a networked world. The challenge is to create global educations that function on a local level, and this project will address these challenges from various perspectives.

- One of our aims is to utilise the rapid changes in technology to develop platforms for large-scale education and examination. The programme will rely on offline courses, developed by leveraging participating universities’ expertise in e-learning training, and African universities’ growing experience with distance learning.

- I also want to attract the next generation of African policy-makers and to grow sustainable and more equal knowledge societies, and I believe that relevant distance education, well adapted to the regional needs and in collaboration with the public sector, will be an important tool.

Click the link to read the full interview with Love Ekenberg on University World News's website

Call for Expression of Interest (EoI): Partners in the Network for Massive Scale Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

ICDE invites institutions, project/networks, experts and relevant stakeholders to submit an Expression of Interest, EoI, for participating as a partner in a network for massive scale higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is led by Professor Love Ekenberg. Deadline on 23 March 2018.

Click this link to read more about the Call for Expression (EoI)