The University of Botswana has been ranked first among top Universities conducting research on Education in sub-Saharan Africa. The 2019 “Mapping the landscape of Education Research” places the University of Botswana at the top of a list of 40 universities with the highest number of research published on education in sub-Saharan Africa. The study has been published on the Jacobs Foundation website. Coming after the University of Botswana is Ghana’s University of Cape Coast while Uganda’s Makerere University is in third position.
According to the study, these top three universities conducted research on primary education, secondary education, higher education and early childhood education. UB came tops as the most prolific research institution at all phases of education. On adult education, the University of Botswana and the University of Ghana published the most articles with about nine articles each. In addition, UB has done well in terms of collaborations with institutions outside the sub-Saharan African region.
Vice Chancellor, Professor David Norris, has expressed delight at the findings, saying it was a great achievement by UB researchers especially that it cemented the fact that the University had great potential to transform into a world class research intensive institution. “I would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere congratulations to researchers in the Faculty of Education for their great work,” said Professor Norris. He urged the Faculty as well as others to share their research findings with relevant stakeholders.
The study was carried out by Cambridge University scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa among them Professor Pauline Rose, Dr Phoebe Downing, Dr Samuel Asare, and Dr Rafael Mitchell. It is the first study of its kind to focus exclusively on education topics conducted by academic researchers based in 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It draws on 1 650 English language articles which have been published in internationally recognised peer-reviewed journals.
The study was conducted for researchers, research funders, policy makers and practitioners interested in education policy-relevant research in sub-Saharan Africa. Its findings aim to inform the direction of new research, patterns in South-South and South-North collaborations and funding and potential partnerships with researchers based in sub-Saharan Africa to promote policy-relevant and contextually-appropriate research to advance educational development in the region.