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The Association of African Universities (AAU), has been asked to develop strategies that would enable the Association penetrate North Africa to reach North African Universities.

Efforts should also be made by AAU to focus on programmes in the continent that are not receiving desired attention to facilitate the spread of its programme across the continent.

The request was part of a communique adopted at the end of the four-day Conference of Rectors, Vice Chancellors and Presidents of African Universities, (COREViP), which ended in Kigali, Rwanda on Friday.

The AAU, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education of Rwanda and the University of Rwanda (UR),organised the Conference which was on the theme: “Internationalisation of Higher Education in Africa.”

More than 250 participants from 46 countries both from Africa and elsewhere participated in the conference which deliberated on issues for the improvement of Higher Education (HE) in Africa, the challenges and the way forward.

The major objective of the conference was to create a platform for debating how internationalisation could help to promote the quality of HE in Africa; promote mobility and credit transfer across Africa and to improve relevance, learning outcomes, skills and competences, and graduate employability among other issues.

The conference also called on the AAU to continue to partner with its donors and endow chairs from accomplished Africans to improve its funding and address other proposal portfolio in order to be financially independent.

The delegates said HE institutions should provide quality education across the continent to attract international students, faculty and partners and should be insulated from the form of internationalisation that would adversely affect the continent.

Higher education institutions should ensure that they sign memorandum of understanding with their foreign partners and ensure that their institutions are not taken advantage of.

The problem of insecurity on some campuses of African universities should be adequately addressed to promote internationalisation in the institutions.