Growing Doctoral Education in Africa: The Story of an Online Course at ICT University in Cameroon

Abstract

While Africa as a continent has experienced steady economic growth over the last decade, quality of life issues still plague much of the continent. The complexity of these problems requires intellectual capabilities to develop workable and sustainable solutions. Thus, facilitating doctoral education in less developed countries (LDCs) is an important and worthwhile undertaking. This paper tells the tale of how a simple case of serendipitous opportunity to facilitate a doctoral research seminar for an African university became a catalyst in securing the participation of several leading scholars to contribute to the seminar and grow their interest in contributing to doctoral education in LDCs. The seminar garnered strong positive reactions from the students who were spread across Africa and among the scholars who participated. We discuss the lessons we learned with a view toward providing a template for remotely delivering doctoral coursework in LDCs.