Domestic and International Tuition Fees in African Universities: Might This Impede the Quest for Africanisation of Higher Education?

This article discusses the implications of the tuition fees disparities that persist within African universities whereby various students are charged fees on the grounds of being either domestic or international student. The primary goal of the author is not only to sensitise debates around this highly neglected issue but also to produce a useful sociological framework capable of enabling Africans to participate in their own educational development wherever they may choose to study. The author sampled tuition fees practices from three universities in Africa to demonstrate how such arbitrary policy impinges on current discourse on Africanisation of higher education in very complex and subtle ways. The author equally drew credence from the thinking of the Bologna Process and the challenges such development presents to the African continent. Without disregarding recent efforts within the continent, however, this author argues that attempts towards the promotion of an all-inclusive higher education environment within Africa while neglecting the implications contingent on such differential tuition fees practices within Africa’s universities negates all efforts towards true Africanisation. Consequently, the author calls for the issue of domestic and international tuition fees to be included on the agenda of various efforts towards the harmonization of African higher education. It is hoped that such move would help strengthen the Africanisation project.