Virtual universities in Africa: The challenges that need to be overcome

An increasing number of African nations now offer virtual universities. This is an appropriate (though partial) response to the challenge of the massification of higher education. However, the rollout of virtual universities raises technical, institutional,and cultural issues, as well as concerns about the quality of the resources used. In Africa, where public budgetary constraints are routine, the cost of funding public university infrastructure is high. Digital universities appear to offer a way of providing a less costly route to education, while meeting the challenge of massification. Distance learning complements classroom based learning and vice versa. However, digital university projects owe their success to a number of essential preconditions: technical (hardware, cost of data), institutional (collaboration between institutions, remuneration for teaching staff), cultural (training for teaching staff), and quality of content.