ABSTRACT
In developed countries, quality enhancement in higher education is strongly focused on improving the appropriateness of graduate outcomes for contemporary societal conditions. In many developing countries, including all of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the need for such improvement is acute, given the critical role of graduates in addressing development challenges such as poverty alleviation and building functional democracies. In SSA, however, the ‘appropriateness’ goal of quality enhancement is matched in importance by a related imperative: to develop curricula and pedagogies that can counter the reproductive tendencies of social structures and thus create conditions in which ‘non-traditional’ students with exceptionally high levels of educational disadvantage, who now make up the majority of the student body, might realize their potential.
