Global interconnections in health and education

Cynthia Cook - Creighton University

Factors relating to the Decline of Maternal Deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa

Factors relating to the decline of maternal deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa focusing on marital status, political status, and spending on education.

Opportune Zongo - Bowling Green State University

Hierarchies of Power and Education: The Case of Africa

This paper will look at the types of education promoted historically in Africa and the ones pursued today by African governments, private African individuals, or non-African institutions. The paper will primarily demonstrate the ways African governments and institutions inside and outside Africa have progressively positioned education as a pivotal medium for fostering or solidifying mutually beneficial transnational relations between Africa and the rest of the world.

The paper will argue that, through education, governments and institutions have sought to strategically position themselves culturally and politically in the eyes of the world. They are continually rethinking the nature and delivery of education as it relates to Africa and the rest of the world and, through methods and strategies, have, for instance, reconfigured study (ing) abroad to effectively contribute to a much less objectified view and approach to Africa. The paper will conclude that education can play a pivotal role in the transnational relations between Africa and the rest of the world.

Ishmael Munene - Northern Arizona University

The Contours of Internationalization in Kenya’s Universities: The Challenge of Quality and Relevance in the Context of Northern Dominance

Internationalization of universities has become a major strategy for university development, driven in part by the need for global reputation and enhanced revenue streams. Though these internationalization efforts have increased in scope and depth in northern industrialized countries in the last decade, the process has a long history in African countries including Kenya. In this chapter, I explore the evolution of the internationalization of higher education in Kenya paying close attention to the context in which it has been framed from the colonial era to the contemporary period. In the analysis. I demonstrate dominance of Northern countries and values as epitomized in the manifest tension between the desire by universities to espouse global values and generate revenue versus the need for the institutions to demonstrate local relevance through the infusion of African epistemologies even as they clamor for global ranking through internationalization.