Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 3(1) 2015, v–vi  |  2307-6267  | DOI: 10.14426/jsaa.v3i1.98

www.jsaa.ac.za

Claudia Frittelli

Preface

A common refrain of Western donors is that challenges of leadership, corruption and 
ethnicity are major elements hindering African development work. Whether these dynamics 
are any less prevalent in the developed world is arguable. However, one indisputable factor 
is the African youth bulge with an estimated 20% of the world population to be African by 
2050. How Africa’s education systems nurture and accommodate the formative years will 
continue to affect mobility, peace and security globally.  

With the premise that African universities have the responsibility to educate and 
train their countries’ political and academic leaders, Carnegie Corporation of New York 
embarked on a programme to revitalise African universities in 2000. One report flowing 
from the programme’s research component and entitled The university in Africa and democratic 
citizenship: Hothouse or training ground? concluded that ‘the potential of a university to act 
as a training ground for democratic citizenship is best realized by supporting students’ 
exercise of democratic leadership on campus. This in turn develops and fosters democratic 
leadership in civil society’. The report prompted a collaborative research project which 
led to the book Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism and to this issue of 
the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa. The book provides a 21st-century baseline review of 
student governance, as well as its development, current structures and level of enforcement 
in a cross section of universities and countries in sub-Saharan Africa and indicates how 
student participation has evolved since the student movements of the 1960s. Both the book 
and the journal issue provide evidence that the challenges of leadership, ethnic cleavages 
and good governance are already evident at the level of student leadership, often reflecting 
a national ethos influenced by political parties. This begs the question of how institutions 
might look if student governance was held to standards demanded by students themselves, 
thus changing the mindset graduates might take to their next institutional affiliations. 



vi  Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 3(1) 2015, v–vi |  2307-6267  | DOI: 10.14426/jsaa.v3i1.98

The issue ‘Student Power in Africa’ of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa and its 
companion publication, the book Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism, are 
especially useful resources for administrators interested in the transformation of institutional 
cultures, and as an orientation for new student leaders. Both publications are open access 
through a pioneering publisher, African Minds, another by-product of the programme 
support.  Student leadership is one of the principal entry points where youth experience 
institutional governance. Vibrant universities engaged in innovative and often daring reform 
contribute to producing a new generation of leaders, an important route to transformative 
democratisation, reforming public policy and building civil society. This issue of the Journal 
of Student Affairs in Africa offers reflection on how that process could advance.

Claudia Frittelli
Program Officer, Higher Education and Research in Africa
Carnegie Corporation of New York

Acknowledgement
The issue ‘Student Power in Africa’ of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa was made possible 
with funding for the project Student Representation in Higher Education Governance in 
Africa received from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Grant No. D14034.