International Conference

From 16 to 18 of January 2011, the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and the British Council (BC) jointly ran a conference at the Alisa Hotel in Accra, Ghana, which was entitled: 

Making the best use of Africa’s graduates and the role of international partnerships

As we believe that graduate employment is an under-explored issue within African higher education, and one which will become increasingly important as participation increases, we jointly organised this conference with the British Council. 

This conference aimed to bring the ACU’s and the BC’s activities together to identify best practice, explore practical approaches and to offer a platform for debate around the employability of African graduates and how links between the HEIs and business can be formed to help enhance graduates' skills. By starting this dialogue and making these links, we hope we have provided a means to start a wider debate. The results of the conference were presented at the British Council Going Global 5 conference in Hong Kong in March 2011.

Our aims of the conference were as follows: 

• Increased commitment on the part of all stakeholders  -  universities, employers, alumni and policy-makers  -  to work together to monitor and support graduate employment
• Increased commitment to the development of international higher education partnerships supporting graduate employability

This resulted in the "Accra Declaration", a 10 point plan agreed by delegates to to the conference. Please read this Decleration here.

Further details about the conference can be found on the conference website:  http://accra2011.acu.ac.uk