Projects

University of West Africa in Burkina Faso

A concept for supporting higher education programs with American university resources

September 2009

HtW’s mission is to provide people with the resources needed to bring about their own development. In the land-locked Sahel region of West Africa (chiefly, the nations of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger) there is little education at the college or university level. HtW is suggesting a model for providing tertiary-level instruction in West Africa using lecture course content supplied by universities in the United States and elsewhere.
The Concept: A university physically located in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso with many of its courses offered through web-enabled virtual lectures.
Partner universities in different countries provide relevant course material.
Courses to be taught in French and English, depending upon the language of origin. It is assumed that initially most of the virtual course content would be in English; however French language course material would be used if available.
Partner universities where possible in the short term provide a sabbatical professor semester to teach courses as visiting professors.
Partner universities offer semester abroad slots to their students. This could provide partner universities more diverse offerings for their own study-abroad programs (for example in the French language and development fields). Visiting foreign undergraduate students with suitable qualifications potentially could fill teaching assistant roles during their stay.
HtW would admit students from the region based on a competitive application and recruitment process.
Tuition at the University of West Africa would be free for African-origin students without the means to pay fees – tuition paid by foreign sponsors.
Local and visiting students receive courses from visiting professors and from virtual professors.
In the medium to long-term, as University of West Africa graduates obtain more advanced degrees, some would be recruited as full-time professors in their fields at the university in Ouagadougou. Over time the role virtual professors could decrease, as would foreign (our) direction. Hence enabling the future leaders of Burkina Faso.
Summary:
The proposed University of West Africa would provide a number of benefits to the West African region it would serve. The number of university graduates in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and other targeted African nations would increase. Partnerships with foreign universities and visits by students and professors would increase awareness of a region that currently has one of the lowest profiles in the world. The West African location could make the university a natural laboratory for research into such fields as microfinance, malaria and other fields that require going beyond books and into the field. The students themselves, due to their learned proficiency in English, would be prime candidates as in-country staff for non-government organizations and other foreign-based enterprises from English-speaking nations.

Above: HtW staff and volunteers inspect the land given by the government for UAO.