1. Concluding remarks
Eva Egron‐Polak, Secretary‐General, International Association of Universities (IAU)
Offering Equitable Access and Success in higher education of quality is at the core of the
challenge and the responsibility facing higher education systems and institutions not only in
Africa but also in Europe, in North America, in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the pacific
and the Middle East.
We heard it confirmed by many of our speakers over the past two days.
It is an imperative that all higher education institutions face, though the obstacles, the specific
challenges and their capacities and the policy context in which they can tackle them, may vary
tremendously.
The IAU Board was wise when it decided, several years ago, to focus and develop actions on
this critical and central question for the future of individuals, nations and regions.
So please let me recognize a few of the people who accompanied IAU as we developed these
actions that in some respects have brought us to this conference:
I will start with Professor Jose Ferreira Gomes who chaired the first IAU Task force on this topic
in and Prof. Manuel Fernos who chairs the Task Force now. They were helped by a number of
experts including Prof. Christina Lloyd from OU, Prof. Shyam Menon from India, Prof.
Ssebuwufu formerly of Makerere Univesity but now at AAU, Jackie King from the USA and an
expert from Brazil. My colleague and executive Assistant Elodie Boisfer has been working with
me at the IAU Secretariat, finally being able to use her graduate degree in education by
coordinating the work on this area.
All of us are pleased to note the pertinence of the Statement we all drafted together, and to
see how well its main recommendations constitute an accurate and a useful blue print for some
of the considerations and actions that governments and institutions must take up meet the
challenge of equitable access and success.
Though IAU recognizes the importance of national and regional contexts, we are still convinced
that at the truly international/global level, there is much that unites leaders of higher education
institutions and that we must continue to have a platform where we all learn from one another.
At this conference, we heard presentations from representatives of 15 countries from almost
every region of the world and comments from many others from the floor.
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2. What can we pool together as a shared learning outcome? I can only offer my own reply to this
question, but you each may have retained different aspects because they echoed more
specifically important points useful to you.
1. We heard that we must get the public policy right – we must not allow politicians to
only pay rhetorical lip service to the issue of social justice and equality – we must
advocate for sound policies and related resources/investments to be put in place. But
that also means undertaking critical analysis and research about those policies that are
in place now but are not delivering on the goals of access and equity
2. The importance of data collection and analysis was noted and stressed and certainly this
is a critical aspect in some of our countries while others already have in place highly
sophisticated information management systems that can track and monitor if targets
are being reached; though in some countries, collecting data according to ethnic or
racial categories is not allowed.
3. But we all know that data and numbers only take us so far, and that they can also take
us where we want to or others want us to go. So critical analysis of the data and a
sound assessment of the key drivers of the policies for equity in access and success are
necessary.
4. As we heard, this agenda can be driven both by economic development and social
inclusion considerations – often both simultaneously because they are interconnected
and interdependent. And policies which may appear progressive and equitable on the
face of it can have regressive impact in social terms – free higher education can actually
be regressive if only graduates of the best secondary often private schools gain access!
5. Another dimension of the lesson I take away from this conference is the importance of
conceptual clarity with regard to even the very basic concepts that have framed our
discussion here and the need for this clarity to be contextually relevant –
6. what is success for us?
7. Who are the groups we wish to bring into HE?
8. What education do we wish to offer them?
Is success the number of students we admit? Is it the number of graduates? Is it the level of
employment of graduates? Their salaries? Is it the quality of life of the local community in
which the university exists a measure of success?
It is all of that but when setting policy and targets and developing strategies – they must be
explicitly linked to these concepts of success at the appropriate level – individual, institutional
and national
Is quality higher education measured by the place the university has gained in the ranking? Is it
measured by the way it integrates and reaches out to learners from marginalized groups? Is
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3. selectivity a mark of quality; is inclusiveness such a measure? We heard some definitions
offered by speakers during the past two days.
Clearly, the target audience of the whole agenda of widening participation differs from country
to country – and in fact it can even differ according to location of the HEI, and thus it too must
be a clear concept since the actions and strategies needed to are clearly rather different
depending on this target. In Africa, the simple but oh so difficult issue is often just expansion of
places. As well, increasing access for women remains a top priority whereas this is no longer
the key target in many other nations where in fact attracting boys is more important so that
gender balance is maintained;
Of course, people from low socio‐economic classes are for the most part a common under‐
represented group being targeted in most access policies, but often people in this group are
also of a minority background in terms of ethnic origin, color, linguistic background etc. and
thus approaches to increasing their successful participation in higher education requires
sensitivity on many fronts simultaneously and overcoming many barriers at the same time.
Students with disabilities, who are also not a heterogeneous group offer different challenges
yet again.
There was a great deal of consensus here among the participants with regard to the importance
of the work and efforts that must be undertaken to open up solid and real opportunities for as
diverse and as large a group of learners as possible.
Though the Open Universities, online universities and blended learning approaches offer a still
under‐utilized reply, we also know that we must get residential universities onside in a big way.
9. Yet, as all of us know, in most universities, there is agreement on very little – there are
many who will argue that widening participation will lower quality, threaten reputation
etc and that other universities or other types of higher or tertiary education institutions
should cater to such groups but not your university.
10. So an important lesson I take away from here is that Champions like you need to be
even more active – the theme that brings us together requires visionary leadership and
general ownership of these goals and strategies throughout the institution:
– among the students who should feel pride in attending a university that has put equity
and access at the core of its mission; and get involved in outreach and mentoring
faculty members who need to be engaged to recognize that their pedagogical approach
needs to reflect a more diverse student body coming to the classroom with different
prior learning experiences;
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4. the admission people or registrars – the key gatekeepers must be brought on board to
assess learning capacity or potential rather than simply looking and comparing prior
educational achievements.
The planners of both of physical infrastructure and those who schedule academic
programs in terms of time need to consider Adult learners, part time learners, learners
who live outside the urban centres, etc.
The approach needs to permeate the institution and as we heard, even when funding, a
central instrument for addressing inequality and improving quality, even without
additional funds, there is much that can be done.
I could not work at the IAU if I did not believe in the following Chinese proverb ‘If you want to
go quickly, go alone; if you want to go far go with others’.
I deeply believe in collective action and though we did not ask you directly What Can or should
IAU do to pursue this agenda further? The Task Force and the Pilot Universities as well as the
IAU Board have been considering the question very seriously;
Some of the options that IAU has looked at, though all need external funding, are the following:
‐ Develop an institutional service to assist universities to undertake a reflection and a
critical self‐assessment of their actions using an international panel of experts;
‐ Continue improving the initial self‐assessment instrument by working with experts in
different regions and eventually invite a second set of pilot universities to conduct self‐
studies and share results as in the pilot – the initial pilot had 10 institutions from the
Americas and Asia.
‐ Gather and disseminate success stories on an open web‐based platform. We need to
celebrate successes.
Let me conclude this rather long presentations by going back to one of the starting points of
this conference, the assistant minister urged us to note that
Higher education must make a difference ‐ Education, and increasingly higher education, is the
most effective social elevator for individuals; and in turn, highly educated people are also the
most important resource for narrowing gaps between nations and regions and securing a
sustainable quality of life for societies.
It is up to us to make certain that through advocating for and implementing strategies that
ensure equitable access and success in higher education we contribute to the progressive and
permanent removal of the most insurmountable obstacle – ignorance and powerlessness.
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5. We are very grateful to KU – Prof. Olive Mugenda, Dr. Fatuma Chege but also to the numerous
other colleagues who have worked for weeks to make this conference a substantive and a
logistical success. The students and staff of the university have made us feel very welcome and
very valued guests.
Let me thank my colleagues and staff of the IAU – for their hard work. I introduced them but
let me do so again – Dr. Hilligje van’t Land, director of membership and program development,
Isabelle Devylder, Ross Hudson and Elodie Boisfer whom you have seen play a number of
different roles.
Thanks to all of you for participating in this discussion. If you are member and please join and
remain active IAU members so we can work in this direction and the other directions.
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