Decolonising the African Union Regional Higher Education Policy A Tentative Approach against Neocolonial Entanglement

Regionalisation of higher education policies has always been undertaken not only as a collective response to challenges of globalisation but also as a regional roadmap for national higher education policy initiatives. The African Union (AU) has been initiating various Pan-African higher education policies and programmes on issues related but not limited to curriculum harmonisation, academic mobility, quality assurance protocols, and centres of excellence. This has been done to make the African higher education space more relevant and competitive within the context of the globalised knowledge economy. Most of these regional higher education policies have, however, been initiated, funded, and expert-advised by external donors and regional organisations, mainly the European Union (EU). Because of its long history of integration, this experience of the EU often becomes a recurrent point of reference and is viewed as the epitome of regional integration. It is further often considered as a model to be followed by other regional groupings. This chapter critically interrogates the neocolonial entanglement in regional higher education policy processes between the EU and AU, focusing on the AU Higher Education Harmonisation Strategy. The chapter discusses the implications and challenges of excessive dependence by the AU on external actors for higher education policy; it envisages a decolonial alternative future for the regionalisation of higher education in Africa.