Call to Celebrate the African University Week – 20^th – 24^th November 2017

Background on African University Day

The African University Day was constituted by the AAU Board of Directors in 2005 to commemorate the day that the AAU was created on 12th November 1967 in Rabat, Morocco. The celebrations this year are special because the AAU is turning fifty years old. Therefore the celebrations are a continuation of the year-long Golden Jubilee celebrations for the Association. Previous celebration activities have included topical seminars, debates on African Higher Education, exhibitions, social media conversations among several other types of activities. The theme for the 2017 African University Week is “AAU@50: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects for Sustainable Development in Africa”.

The purpose of the African University Week Celebrations is to focus attention on the African Higher Education sector – with a view of reflecting on progress, challenges, opportunities faced by this important sector. These celebrations also aim at attracting increased support for African Higher Education – this support could be in the form of human resources, financial resources or advocacy. The Association continues to engage a diversity of stakeholders for the improvement of African Higher Education – these include the Committee of Ten Heads of States that were nominated to champion African Higher Education, engagement of the private industries in Africa and working with the students association through the All Africa Students Union, the National Councils of Higher Education, the Ministries of Education and several Development Partners.

Objectives of African University Week Celebrations

1. Create awareness on the importance of Higher Education in Africa
2. Promote dialogue on how to improve Higher Education in Africa
3. Celebrate the success stories of Higher Education in Africa

Celebration of the African University Week by all African Universities

AAU also calls on all African universities to celebrate the African Universities Week. It is mandatory for all AAU member universities to commemorate the Week with various activities. Each Higher Education Institution in Africa is invited to celebrate the Week by organizing seminars, workshops, or panel discussions in which both policy-makers and major stakeholders are invited to participate. This can be supplemented by press releases, articles in local newspapers, and exhibitions of the universities’ outputs. For the 2017 celebrations we encourage that the celebrations be fully covered by young social media reporters using twitter, facebook, blogs and youtube. At least one social media reporter will be identified  from each AAU Member University.

Joint Collaborations in celebrating the African University Week

If there is more than one university in a country, universities may wish to arrange a joint celebration during the designated week. AAU suggests that university management circulates information concerning the event to Ministries of Education, University Councils, Committees of Vice-Chancellors and all institutions involved in the management of Higher Education Institutions, other public and private universities in each country that are non-members of this Association, research institutions, the media and the general public, inviting them to join in the celebration to give visibility to the Week and the promotion of activities of Higher Education Institutions in each country.

After the event all institutions are requested to send to the AAU reports, including photographs on the celebration. These will be published in the AAU Newsletter and website.

Register to participate in the African University Week scheduled for Accra Ghana: https://www.research.net/r/EduTech17

Social Media Campaign for the 2017 African University Week

This year the AAU Secretariat proposes to use Social Media to create awareness on the African University Week celebrations. This innovative approach will harness Social Media to create awareness and engage the Higher Education community electronically through the use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogging. This approach aims to generate “awareness” online about Higher Education in Africa. Specifically the following is proposed to take place:

1. A call for social media reporters will be circulated by AAU via the AAU Mailing list and website calling on volunteers to support the social media campaign for the AU Week
2. The selected volunteer social media reporters will work online to retweet, like and re-post posts related to the AU Week
3. A few volunteer social media reporters will be selected to be physically present at the host institution to cover the event by retweeting, liking and re-posting posts related to the AU Week. A short seminar to orient the volunteer social media reporters is planned at the host institution.
4. A hash tag will be used to tag all the posts that will be posted to enable aggregation and tracking of traffic (e.g. #AFUniWk)
5. While tweeting or liking posts social media reporters will be encouraged to mention universities in Africa and hopefully create awareness on and promote these universities as well.

Read the full Call for Social Media Reporters

Register here to become a Social Media Reporter

Theme for 2017 African University Week

The theme of the 2017 African University Week is “AAU@50: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects for Sustainable Development in Africa”. This theme was adapted from the 14th AAU General Conference and Golden Jubilee celebrations. As the Association turns 50 years old we find it important that as African Higher Education Institutions we should be reflecting on where we have come from, where we are and where we would like to be.

African University Week Website

Visit the African University Week Website to learn more about this Celebration

Register to participate in the African University Week scheduled for Accra Ghana: https://www.research.net/r/EduTech17