BGU Lecturer Part of the Evolution of Higher Education in Zimbabwe

Earlier this year Dr Hadiza Kere Abdulrahman, Lecturer of Inclusive Education at Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU), was invited to take part in an international workshop focused on devising a comprehensive framework for the internationalisation of higher and tertiary education in Zimbabwe.

Dr Abdulrahman’s involvement in the initiative came as a result of her work with colleagues at the University of Nottingham and The Zimbabwean Council of Higher Education – ZIMCHE. Their collaborative work explored the "The State of Internationalisation of Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa" requiring an understanding of events and procedures across six different countries and attempting to cast a critical decolonial light on the whole process.

This new workshop took the group’s findings and utilised them from a Zimbabwean perspective and its recommendations are now in the process of being adopted as the national policy on internationalisation of higher and tertiary education in Zimbabwe.

Speaking on her return to BGU Dr Abdulrahman discussed her motivations for taking part in the initiative:

“My involvement in this workshop builds on my wider work of always problematising the things we have come to take for granted, be they the notion of Education or Internationalisation or any other such issue. How can African settings in particular address these issues with an adequate understanding of our particular historical specificities and peculiarities?

My aim is to always attempt to view the issues through various lenses and theoretical constructs with Decoloniality being one. This paper was jointly undertaken with Professors Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Juliet Thondhlana and Dr Evelyn Garwe who were also present at the workshop in different capacities.”

Our academics are regularly invited to present at conferences and support learning initiatives around the world, you can follow all their travels on our news page and find out how you can start your own adventures on our course pages.