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Broadening Participation in the Sciences within and from Africa: Purpose, Challenges, and Prospects
Many of Africa’s challenges have scientific solutions, but there are fewer individuals engaged in scientific activity per capita on this continent than on any other. Only a handful of African scientists use their skills to capacity or are leaders in their disciplines. Underrepresentation of Africans...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Society for Cell Biology
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5459259/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28408409 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-12-0265 |
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author | Okeke, Iruka N. Babalola, Chinedum P. Byarugaba, Denis K. Djimde, Abdoulaye Osoniyi, Omolaja R. |
author_facet | Okeke, Iruka N. Babalola, Chinedum P. Byarugaba, Denis K. Djimde, Abdoulaye Osoniyi, Omolaja R. |
author_sort | Okeke, Iruka N. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Many of Africa’s challenges have scientific solutions, but there are fewer individuals engaged in scientific activity per capita on this continent than on any other. Only a handful of African scientists use their skills to capacity or are leaders in their disciplines. Underrepresentation of Africans in scientific practice, discourse, and decision making reduces the richness of intellectual contributions toward hard problems worldwide. This essay outlines challenges faced by teacher-scholars from sub-Saharan Africa as we build scientific expertise. Access to tertiary-level science is difficult and uneven across Africa, and the quality of training available varies from top-range to inadequate. Access to science higher education needs to increase, particularly for female students, first-generation literates, and rural populations. We make suggestions for collaborative initiatives involving stakeholders outside Africa and/or outside academia that could extend educational opportunities available to African students and increase the chance that Africa-based expertise is globally available. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5459259 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | American Society for Cell Biology |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-54592592017-06-12 Broadening Participation in the Sciences within and from Africa: Purpose, Challenges, and Prospects Okeke, Iruka N. Babalola, Chinedum P. Byarugaba, Denis K. Djimde, Abdoulaye Osoniyi, Omolaja R. CBE Life Sci Educ Essay Many of Africa’s challenges have scientific solutions, but there are fewer individuals engaged in scientific activity per capita on this continent than on any other. Only a handful of African scientists use their skills to capacity or are leaders in their disciplines. Underrepresentation of Africans in scientific practice, discourse, and decision making reduces the richness of intellectual contributions toward hard problems worldwide. This essay outlines challenges faced by teacher-scholars from sub-Saharan Africa as we build scientific expertise. Access to tertiary-level science is difficult and uneven across Africa, and the quality of training available varies from top-range to inadequate. Access to science higher education needs to increase, particularly for female students, first-generation literates, and rural populations. We make suggestions for collaborative initiatives involving stakeholders outside Africa and/or outside academia that could extend educational opportunities available to African students and increase the chance that Africa-based expertise is globally available. American Society for Cell Biology 2017 /pmc/articles/PMC5459259/ /pubmed/28408409 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-12-0265 Text en © 2017 I. N. Okeke et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2017 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). “ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology. |
spellingShingle | Essay Okeke, Iruka N. Babalola, Chinedum P. Byarugaba, Denis K. Djimde, Abdoulaye Osoniyi, Omolaja R. Broadening Participation in the Sciences within and from Africa: Purpose, Challenges, and Prospects |
title | Broadening Participation in the Sciences within and from Africa: Purpose, Challenges, and Prospects |
title_full | Broadening Participation in the Sciences within and from Africa: Purpose, Challenges, and Prospects |
title_fullStr | Broadening Participation in the Sciences within and from Africa: Purpose, Challenges, and Prospects |
title_full_unstemmed | Broadening Participation in the Sciences within and from Africa: Purpose, Challenges, and Prospects |
title_short | Broadening Participation in the Sciences within and from Africa: Purpose, Challenges, and Prospects |
title_sort | broadening participation in the sciences within and from africa: purpose, challenges, and prospects |
topic | Essay |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5459259/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28408409 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-12-0265 |
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