King's College London

This week, the Afe Babalola Centre for Transnational Education at King’s celebrated the conclusion of a two-week long residential with thirty teachers from Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. The residential saw colleagues begin the co-development of a framework for a Postgraduate Certification in Professional Development (Education), which will be used to train hundreds of educators across Africa.

The residential, hosted by King’s in collaboration with TEDI-London (The Engineering & Design Institute London), King’s Academy, and King’s Digital, is the first step in the development of the Postgraduate Certification intended to ‘train the trainers’, with a focus on professional development and capacity building. The finalised teaching programme will be piloted in 2025 to teachers across Africa. The course is intended to help upskill educators and teachers at scale, helping them in turn to directly improve the lives of underserved youth in and beyond Africa.

Professor ‘Funmi Olonisakin, Vice President (International, Engagement & Service), said “Young, bright African talent should never have to lack for education, and the work of the Afe Babalola Centre is harnessing the power of transnational education to support at least 1 million students in the next 10 years. This residential has been the first step to this ambition, as we build a base to shape and grow the programme that will train the teachers of tomorrow. We are grateful to Aare Afe Babalola, who serves as an inspiration to us all in his tireless pursuit of learning and education. His generosity is enabling us to reach so many young people across Africa who are just as passionate about learning and shaping the continent’s future.”

Speaking at a reception at Science Gallery London, Professor Shitij Kapur, Vice-Chancellor & President of King's, celebrated King's long relationship with Africa and the future work of the Afe Babalola Centre, thanks to the philanthropic support of Aare Afe Babalola. "The answer is partnership. It can be done, and it will be done, together. Thank you, Aare Afe Babalola’s for showing us the way", he said. 

Representing Aare Afe Babalola, Anne Babalola, said "The outcome of this programme will deliver on Aare's ambition to deliver education to so many young people. I’m grateful, on behalf of my father, for the way King’s has embraced us and our ambition so whole-heartedly. This project means a lot to my father and all of us, and we look forward to continuing to help propel this programme forward."

London Residential

The fortnight residential saw attendees build connections with peers from multiple organisations, as they created a guiding manifesto for the development of the teacher training programme across Africa. One of the focus areas included collectively exploring the challenges facing community healthcare workforce development and design innovative solutions for training of health professionals.

“The past two weeks have been excellent. I particularly appreciated the diverse teaching methodologies we experienced, which effectively introduced different approaches to problem solving in healthcare. I also thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with colleagues from various countries, and I can see the potential for a collaborative and transnational curriculum.” - Dr Reson Marima, who attended the residential.

Colleagues were in attendance from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, representing partner organisations including Afe Babalola University, African Leadership Centre (Nairobi), Amadhu Bello University, Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), Neem Foundation, National Board for Technical Education (Nigeria), University of Ghana, University of Ibadan, University of Lagos, University of Nairobi and University of Pretoria.

The teaching at TEDI-London, which was founded by King's, Arizona State University and UNSW Sydney in 2021, used project-based learning to tackle challenges in sustainable community healthcare and creation of employment opportunities.

Reflecting on the residential, Dr Abiye said. “I appreciated how we were all encouraged to think outside the box when adopting an engineering approach. It has been fascinating to apply divergent and convergent thinking to our work. The highlight of the experience for me was undoubtedly the presentations and seeing how the solutions we’ve developed over the past two weeks have come together. It was incredibly valuable to engage with other experts and witness how everything has been integrated from the initial stages to the final product.”

Transnational education to empower and enable

The Afe Babalola Centre, which was officially launched in August 2023, advances transnational education to empower and enable Africa’s talented young people to make meaningful contributions to their communities and the world. This new Postgraduate Certification is an integral part of the Afe Babalola Centre’s commitment to address the lack of capacity in educators. Once launched, the qualification will enable teachers to deliver improved pre-university education and training to young people across Africa.

More widely, the Centre has been established is to provide young Africans with access to employment and higher education, as well as nurturing leadership attributes, creative problem-solving and entrepreneurial skills.

Find out more about the Afe Babalola Centre here.