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This paper aims to analyze the production function nexus between higher education practice and the development of innovation‐related competencies by university graduates in Spain. The research hypothesis is the presence of statistically significant relationships between the development of innovational competencies and the modes of teaching and learning used in higher education practice.

The relationships are modeled through a set of stochastic frontier and variance component equations with the development of each competency as the dependent variable. The main explanatory variables capture the prevalence of diverse teaching/learning modes and the behavior of graduates during their studies. Controls for individual and study programs are also included. Data comes from the European graduate survey REFLEX and includes about 5,500 records.

Estimates show evidence of significant marginal effects of the teaching and learning modes and the development of specific competencies by graduates. Proactive methods in general, and problem‐based learning in particular, appear as the most effective classroom practices to develop the competencies required to innovate in the workplace.

To guide the implementation of reforms in higher education, more must be learned about possible trade‐offs between the diverse types of resources involved and the outcomes obtained. Resources should be examined in terms of their relative costs and the results interpreted with regard to their value to individuals and society.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to explore quantitatively the influence of higher education practice on the development of the capabilities required to innovate in the workplace.

This essay reconsiders the impact of higher education on national and global development and the related implications of current trends in investment in education. There is a general consensus that investing in higher education positively influences economic development and drives innovation; however, this investment also has wider-reaching impact across other sectors important to social development and equity. At present, developing and emerging economies generally fail to meet international budget targets for education. This translates into exponentially less spending on higher education, which affects quality, access, learning, productive capacity, and competitiveness. Additionally, official development assistance investment in higher education still lags behind primary education and is structured in a way that may divert funds away from recipient countries and long-term institutional change. These circumstances raise important questions for researchers in the field of comparative and international education studies. How can developing countries better advance their higher education systems to drive national and global development, especially given resource limitations? Which models, practices, and investment strategies are most relevant for advancing these goals in low-income settings? Answering these questions will assist policymakers and practitioners committed to improving opportunities for individuals and communities in developing economies.

This chapter provides a critical assessment of an article on higher education and economic development, by analyzing the ways the authors reflect on the importance of building technological capabilities. The need to demonstrate the use of evolutionary economics and innovation systems approach in demonstrating higher education contribution to economic growth motivated the article. The critique begins by examining the dominant theories and reflective pieces used by scholars to explain higher education’s contribution to economic development, and then situate the evolutionary economics and innovation systems approach used in the article in this discourse. This critical assessment also delves into how the article approaches the subject matter of higher education; and, the methods used to gather evidence for the case of higher education in South Africa. The chapter then condenses popular views on the role of higher education in economic development and assesses whether “building technological capabilities” is one such view or it is an emerging role. In conclusion, the chapter synthesizes the various sections in the article and isolates the key issues that underpin each of the sections and how each issue is manifested in the higher education sector. The conclusion unloads the overall construction of the article to succinctly knit the bigger argument advanced by the article and provide reasons for the viewpoints supported by this assessment.

The African continent is filled with a textured history, vast resources, and immense opportunity. The landscape of higher education on such a diverse continent is extensive and complex. In this review of the landscape, four primary topics are evaluated. The historical context is the foundational heading, which briefly covers the evolution from colonization to independence and the knowledge economy. The second main heading builds upon the historical context to provide an overview of the numerous components of higher education, including language diversity, institutional type, and access to education. A third section outlines key challenges and opportunities including finance, governance, organizational effectiveness, and the academic core. Each of these challenges and opportunities is interconnected and moves from external influences (e.g., fiscal and political climate) to internal influences (e.g., administrative leadership and faculty roles). The last layer of the landscape focuses on leveraging higher education in Africa for social and economic progress and development. Shaping a higher education system around principles of the public good and generating social benefits is important for including postsecondary institutions in a development strategy.

Tertiary education in Ghana has seen rapid advancement over the past two decades. This growth is the result of transformative policy reforms such as upgrading polytechnics into higher education status; the establishment of the University of Development Studies (UDS) in the northern part of the country; the amalgamation of existing Colleges of Education into degree awarding institutions; the creation of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to provide supplementary financial support for infrastructure, faculty research and development; expansion of distance education programs; modification of the student loan scheme; and a conducive regulatory environment that encourages private sector participation in higher education provision. In spite of these developments, the system continues to face several challenges such as limited funding to support academic programs; limited participation rates for low-income students, females, and minorities; difficulty recruiting and retaining young academic and research faculty; inadequate research capacities; limited ICT infrastructure to enhance instruction and curriculum delivery and inadequate facilities to support science and technology education; etc. This chapter focuses on the state of public higher education in Ghana with emphasis on current growth and challenges. The chapter offers descriptive analysis based on government policy reports and documents, enrollment data from universities in Ghana, and data from the Ministry of Education and the National Council for Tertiary Education in Ghana.

This chapter evaluates the readiness of the higher education system to contribute to the competitiveness of African countries in the knowledge economy. Using institutions of higher learning in Kenya and Uganda as case studies, the study demonstrates that the higher education system in Africa is ill-equipped to fulfill the role of knowledge production for the advancement of African economies. The chapter proposed promising ways through which higher education in the region can play a more fulfilling role to the global knowledge economy through the formation of relevant skills for the growth of African economies. In an era where knowledge assets are accorded more importance than capital and labor assets, and where the economy relies on knowledge as the key engine of economic growth, this chapter argues that higher education institutions in Africa can assist in tackling the continent’s challenges through research in knowledge creation, dissemination, and utilization for improved productivity. These institutions need to engage in design-driven innovation in the emerging knowledge economy. To enhance their contributions toward human capital development and knowledge-intensive economies in the region, it is imperative to employ public-private initiatives to bridge and address various challenges and gaps facing universities and research institutions in Africa.

What are the current trends that mark out the process of internationalization of higher education? In what directions do these trends influence the direction of research and development in African universities? Does internationalization of higher education have the potential to boost knowledge production relevant to Africa’s development needs or it will further hasten the marginalization of both African universities and African development agendas within the global network of scientific knowledge? Internationalization of education is not new. Historically, students have sought better higher education abroad influenced by the desire to benefit from better opportunities provided by universities in the developed countries. The current phase of higher education internationalization has however emerged more vigorously in the 21st century and is associated with the twin trends of globalization and liberalization. Proponents of globalization have argued that higher education is bound to be more strongly affected by worldwide economic developments. They also point out that higher education institutions in developing countries should embrace aspects of internationalization to boost their efforts to be ranked among the best league of universities globally. At the national level, internationalization of higher education is presented as a process that institutions in developing countries must embrace in order to address the persistent challenges of sustainable development. For universities in Africa, the literature argues that internationalization provides them with opportunities that cut across disciplines, institutions, knowledge-systems, and nation-state boundaries thereby exposing the institutions and academics to the world’s best scientific research and infrastructures. In summary, it is contended that internationalization is a strategy to realize success in human-capability and institutional-capacity development in the universities. This chapter revisits these assertions and their tenacity to developing a culture of research and innovation in African universities, and linking the universities to the continent’s development aspirations.

This chapter grapples with questions of agency in the development of African higher education, with a special focus on the Association of African Universities (AAU), an organization outside of formal education policymaking on the continent. Through the lens of rhetorical institutionalism, findings illustrate how the AAU has adopted and adapted competing institutional logics to exert influence over development policymaking. Next, I will discuss how systems of persuasion were cultivated and symbols employed to establish the legitimacy of the organization in a heterogeneous institutional field that includes universities, development agencies, nongovernmental organizations, supranational arrangements, and the influence of international financial institutions. This enabled the AAU to extend institutional logics into African higher education. This case study seeks to upend the pervasive crisis narrative that perpetuates both the impotence of African institutions and the stewardship of outside development elites. Finally this chapter considers the implications of this critical case study for development discourse and practice.

This chapter aims to examine the ways coaching and mentoring are currently leveraged to deliver leadership development in higher education institutions. By exploring the variety of coaching and mentoring approaches and their deployment at different levels and across different institutions we are able to indicate opportunities for further enhancing leadership development in the sector through coaching and mentoring. The chapter examines peer-reviewed articles, sector reports and insights from key informants crafted into mini case studies. Mentoring emerges as a default approach to leadership development, in particular at early career stages and where inclusivity and diversity feature as part of leadership development programmes. Coaching is evident at the senior levels and offers a wider range of individual leader, senior team and organisational leadership development opportunities. Our cases highlight the range of responses and sophistication of coaching approaches and practices, from the highly embedded to other more piecemeal examples. The findings emphasise the importance of empirical research in this area to better understand and inform the sector of the wider benefits and opportunities of coaching and mentoring in supporting leadership development. Opportunities to support greater inclusivity and diversity in leadership should consider coaching approaches and practices too. This exploration of coaching and mentoring identifies why shifts towards coaching may be evident. It challenges those in the sector – researchers, people management and organisational developers, as well as senior leaders – to adopt more integrated and embedded coaching and mentoring initiatives to support the sector in addressing its current challenges.

Higher education institutions around the world have increasingly come to see information and communication technology (ICT) as vital to the business of teaching and learning. Institutions invest a considerable amount of time and resources to erecting the appropriate institutional infrastructure, creating policy and practice, instituting strategy, training faculty, and building the capacity of technology staff. However, in under-resourced regions of the world, such as Africa, ICT, the availability and use of, has several challenges to overcome: a lack of institutional infrastructure, sufficient bandwidth, and limited capacity to employ ICT in the research process or the classroom. Universities report inadequate funding, poor management and infrastructure, resistance to change, inadequate training, and high costs associated with effective ICT use. Moreover, critiques of Western technopositivism surface misgivings related to the performance outcomes and appropriateness of ICT adoption in Africa. In this chapter, the author will explore the work of international organizations and regional and national research and education networks in the diffusion of ICT discourse, consider on-the-ground adoptions and innovation at universities in Nigeria, and reflect on the suitability and sustainability of technology adoption, all within an ICT for development (ICT4D) framework that lenses the evolution of technological applications in higher education. This chapter is significant in that it connects African higher education to ICT4D and frames the various discourses, policy landscapes and practice arenas, as they relate to international actors, continental initiatives, networks, universities, and faculty.