| dc.description.abstract | The collaboration and sharing of teaching and technology among universities is increasingly perceived as a vehicle to improve quality in education and innovation through knowledge exchange. The discussion explores how virtual environment can be optimized for use as a common vehicle for enhancing research and collaboration in a virtual environment in Africa. The study recommends the use of a virtual platform that offers solutions to the challenges encountered by Universities within Africa (Eastern, Central, Southern or Western) in implementing a unified curricula, collaborating in research and teaching. The study documents the developing global challenges such as; the ongoing restrictions on keeping social distance due to COVID-19, the duplication of curricula, funding of research, lack of adequate experts in various programmes and new market demands. The paper proposes a virtual platform (VP)that will offer room for collaborating universities to formulate and developing National and Regional policies that govern the environment. Background COVID-19 will leave no sector in any country in the world unaffected, and its consequences will be felt for years to come and higher Education is not an exception. Currently, most schools in Africa are struggling to accomplish the unfinished syllabi using radio, TVs and other technologies considered appropriate to substitute the face to face approach that the prevailing situation has brought to its knee, Higher education institutions have no option but to establish and improve their information and communications technology (ICT) to deliver their programmes online at a distance to their enrolled students. The universities who have been dependent on projects funded from the west and the east have to rethink first on how such on-going projects will be accomplished. The economic impact left behind by Covid-19 may no longer enable such funding. The collaboration in research and sharing of curriculum and teaching among universities in Africa will be utilized in the post Covid-19 era to address the challenges left behind. This can be carried out by producing and sharing of; common quality curricula resources within and between regions, between different countries or between universities. Curriculum sharing can effectively improve the student’s basic knowledge structure; however, there is limited help in improving their professional knowledge (Li and Wei, 2015). “It may be part of human nature to create solutions, find better alternatives and meet the challenges ahead”. It is further argued that Good policies and procedures play an important role in safeguarding quality (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000). The use of an effective virtual platform in universities would be of great benefit in addressing the challenge of inadequate qualified staff, the increasing learner population, and unenhanced regional and research collaboration. | en_US |
