Understanding the Higher Education Market in Africa

This book offers theoretical and practical insights into the marketing of higher education in Africa. It explores the key players, challenges and policies affecting higher education across the continent; their marketing strategies and the students’ selection process.

While acknowledging the vast size of the continent, this book aims to provide an understanding of the dynamics of higher education in Africa. This book recognises the private and government involvement in higher education provision and students and staff as stakeholders in the marketisation process. Strategic efforts are directed by universities to attract prospective students. This book further addresses issues such as the responses of higher education sectors to the notion of markets and marketing; consumerism and competition in higher education in Africa; conceptions of the commodification of higher education in Africa; and the dominance of Western epistemologies and their influence in transforming higher education sectors. Students as consumers in increasingly marketised higher education sectors in Africa are also discussed.

Though primarily for marketing students and academic researchers, the book’s feature of blended theoretical and practical knowledge means that it will also be of interest to marketing practitioners and university managers.