Key Information
Year:
2023Education Establishment:
University of NottinghamName of Chair Lead:
Professor Juliet ThondhlanaBased at the University of Nottingham, School of Education UK Campus while also having a presence through its offices at the China Campus in Ningbo City and Malaysia Campus, this Chair brings together stakeholders from academic institutions, industry, government, the private sector, civil society and UN agencies to seek and contribute to sustainable solutions through research and impact work within the Global North and Global South, but with a special focus on Africa and Asia.
The work of this Chair
The Chair concentrates on three intersecting themes including Education Across the Life Course (including lifelong learning and adult education, STEM and TVET, and leadership training; Community Engagement for Good); and International and Global Partnerships with a focus on Africa and Asia. In this work, the Chair is supported by the Nottingham UNEVOC Centre, a member of the global platform for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
To achieve its goals, the Chair has identified a strategic partner in Africa (the Association of African Universities, AAU) and in the context of Priority Africa, Chinese Universities which have strong Africa focused programmes (given increasing support of African higher education by the Chinese government) to enable them to mobilise support for its Africa-based collaborations.
To this end the Chair was invited by the AAU to host their Europe Regional Office established on 26 January 2023. Through the AAU Europe Regional Office they seek to promote the quality of higher education in Africa through strategic collaborations across Africa and Europe that can enhance Africa’s capacity to contribute to knowledge creation/production and distribution. This way they are positioned to meaningfully contribute to UNESCO’s Priority Africa agenda.
About the Chair Lead
The Chairholder, Juliet Thondhlana, is the Coordinator of the AAU Europe Regional Office. She has been involved in multiple IHE, global partnerships and sustainability projects focused on education and development, such as, internationalisation of higher education Policy Development and implementation She has supported the development of a national IHE policy for Zimbabwe to guide universities’ internationalisation initiatives and processes.
Professor Thondhlana has more recently co-reviewed the implementation of this policy. In addition, she has co-led the development of the Zimbabwe doctoral training framework and is in the process of seeking funding to support the implementation review. She has also supported the development and implementation of internationalisation of higher education strategy at Erbil Polytechnic University in Kurdistan, Iraq. Further, she is lead editor of the groundbreaking Bloomsbury Handbook of the Internationalization of Higher Education in the Global South. She continues to engage in capacity strengthening in knowledge production and dissemination activities.
