Internationalisation and African Intellectual metissage: Capacity-enhancement through higher education in Africa

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to the discourse on the appropriate African response to globalisation and internationalisation in higher education by examining the role of internationalisation in capacity-enhancement and development in Africa. In the first part, it explores the theoretical underpinnings of capacity-enhancement through university education and analyses how the intertwined processes of internationalisation and Africanisation can contribute to capacity-enhancement and development in Africa. It is argued that the concept of intellectual metissage, as a form of intellectual cross-fertilisation across international borders, is a necessary and appropriate tool to drive internationalisation with the aim of fulfilling the developmental mandate of African universities. In the second part, a prestigious and highly successful international partnership programme, the LLM/MPhil in human rights and democratisation in Africa is analysed to determine its suitability to drive and actualise the capacity-enhancement aspect of higher education in Africa through intellectual métissage.