On 24 August 2022, Kyoto University and Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS) hosted the “New Frontier of Student Exchange between Japanese and African Universities —The IAfP Africa-Japan University education exchange meeting 2022 — TICAD 8 side event “. This online meeting was part of the “Innovative Africa: Educational Networking Programs for Human Resource Development in Africa’s SDGs (Innovative Africa Program, or IAfP)”, implemented by the two universities with support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) through the “Inter-University Exchange Project (Africa)”. It was also a side event of the 8th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 8). The 119 participants represented 34 universities and 17 other organizations.
The first session, held in Japanese, opened with a greeting by Mr. Watanabe Chief Inspector for Schools, Leader of International Strategy Team, Higher Education Bureau, MEXT, followed by Japanese faculty members of three African universities presenting an overview of their institutions: the Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).
In the second and final session, Dr. Whitfield Green, Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Higher Education, Department of Higher Education and Training, Republic of South Africa also delivered a greeting, before faculty and staff members of eight African and Japanese universities introduced their respective institutions in English. The eight universities represented were as follows: the University of Ghana, TUFS, the Shibaura Institute of Technology, the International University of Japan, the Tokyo University of Agriculture, JKUAT, the University of Pretoria, and the University of Zambia. Each presentation covered the institution’s characteristics, internationalization efforts, and exchanges with its Japanese or African partners, and each included a lively question-and-answer session involving university faculty, staff, students, and others from both Africa and Japan.
Finally, Specially Appointed Professor Masayoshi Shigeta of the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies (ASAFAS) delivered remarks emphasizing the importance of Japanese and African universities deepening exchanges with each other through their student mobility programs.
