This tour of the sites does not begin with the help of the digital bird, which goes by the name of Google, but rather with a personal conversation during a hotel-airport transfer, when a friend told me about a competition for science communication videos for postgraduate students. -graduation, Imagine-Pangea. Out of curiosity I watched the videos of this year's winners, especially the best African presentation [I], by a student at the University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin. A beautiful narrative about research into the antioxidant properties of a plant from that country. The setting is that of a laboratory, probably for teaching, with its tiled benches, but with the instruments probably stored in cabinets outside the scene. I had never heard of this university, but here is its website, short and thick: uac.bj/web/ .
We almost never look at these latitudes from across the Atlantic. I turn, influenced by the Zeitgeist in which we live, to the 2018 edition of the World University Ranking by Times Higher Education (THE), searching, by country, for African universities among the 1.000 best in the world. There are 24, spread across South Africa (8), Algeria (1), Egypt (9), Ghana (1), Morocco (2), Nigeria (1), Kenya (1) and Uganda (1). There is mention of another 3, in the curious range 1001+. Benin and 45 other countries on the continent are not included. In this edition of the ranking, 21 Brazilian universities appear among the 1000, as well as another 11 in the new 1001+ range. The population of Brazil is 208 million inhabitants, the African continent is 6 times larger. Great asymmetry between the already asymmetrical in relation to 3 other continents. But there are other filigrees. Among the two Moroccan universities in the ranking is not the University Al-Karaouine, considered the oldest in the world, founded in 859.
The Egyptian list does not include Al-Azhar University, the second oldest, which began its activities in 970. Both surpass Bologna in age, but determining the initial milestones of anything is controversial. Certainly the two oldest today incorporate aspects of the developments that the young university of Bologna provoked. And how is it today, for example, Al-Azhar? Among several videos, I choose a documentary by Brigid Maher, which is dedicated to gender issues: Ladies of Brilliance – students at Al-Azhar University. Watch:
In the extreme south of the continent we have the University of Cape Town in the lead, occupying the 171st seat in the Express Ranking by THE. The second placed occupies a carriage further back, without numbered seats, for positions 251 to 300 (the same carriage as USP): the University of the Witwatersrand, which deserves a special link on the ranking website, describing it as a stage for important resistance to Apartheid (not without internal polarizations). His most famous former student was Nelson Mandela, in addition to 3 other Nobel Prize winners. Your website (https://www.wits.ac.za/) highlights, among others, research into quantum communication carried out in collaboration with Scottish researchers and features on the agenda a performance by the movement “Afriqueer: a dreamscape of masculinities in Africa and Europe”. This year's tour starts in South Africa, goes to the Netherlands and returns to Ghana and Mozambique. The movement started two years ago. Here, we stick with YouTube to provide some straw:
Universities are (or should be) stages of freedom of expression and, if necessary, resistance. Therefore, it is worth paying attention to University of Berkeley's new address, a theme for the near future in this space. For now, here is the epigraph on the Californian site:
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter” (Martin Luther King).
[I] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa7TwlpxtVM&index=1&list=PLb5PhrSuJz9DsHA-OPi2ryZJZ7iThkgWG
