Honoris United Universities Leads Africa’s Higher Education Transformation Through Sustainable Scale

Casablanca, Durban, Tunis, Abuja, 16 January 2024 – As the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting commences in Davos, Switzerland, the first and largest network of higher education institutions in Africa continues to support global focus on education to power future growth and resilience.

Employers believe that 44% of workers’ skills will be disrupted in the next five years and that six in 10 staff members will require training before 2027, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023. This year’s WEF Annual Meeting takes a particular emphasis on ‘Creating Growth and Jobs for a New Era’ and ‘Artificial Intelligence as a Driving Force for the Economy and Society’, as part of a four-day agenda with over 2,800 global leaders.

Honoris is a proud member of the World Economic Forum New Champions, a group of high-growth companies committed to championing new business models, emerging technologies, and sustainable growth strategies in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In 2022, the group received the prestigious award for excellence in Adaptive Capacity as part of the New Champions Annual Awards.

The recent update of its key facts charts a growth trajectory adept at addressing Africa’s local challenges on a global scale, from demographic shifts, to access to education, gender parity, and climate resilience. With 16 institutions across 33 cities, its pan-African student base rose to over 85,000 with 27,000 graduates in 2023 – 20% more than the previous year. By harnessing resilience, tenacity, and unwavering commitment to its students, Honoris has reached a significant milestone by impacting more than 1,000,000 lives across Africa through relevant education for lifetime success.

The network continues to seize the opportunities presented by a new technological era and a rapidly changing world of work to enhance student experience and success. Particularly, Generative AI is crucial in scaling access to quality education and presents a myriad of opportunities for higher education institutions to innovate, enhance, and transform various aspects of their delivery. From personalized learning, efficient content creation, enhanced research capabilities, smart tutoring, and continuous professional development for educators, this new frontier of Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize education in Africa, supporting both learners and educators and preparing graduates for a successful transition into employment.

Its second annual Honoris Impact Report outlines a contribution to 12 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and an increase in its proprietary Impact Score by 16 points, from 175 in 2021 to 191 in 2022, achieving further recognition in two categories, Quality Education, STEM Education, and welcoming an additional category, Clean Energy. With an intentional and focused approach to employability, the number of employer partners doubled to over 800 across the globe, with a student employability rate of 85% within 6 months of graduating.

Most recently, Honoris announced its response to the increasing potential for African Creative Industries to offer wide-ranging employment opportunities for the next generation of African creative talent. It welcomed The Animation School, one of the global leaders in animation training, into the group to cultivate the creative trailblazers of tomorrow in one of the fastest-growing sectors on the continent. Based in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, The Animation School opened its doors in 2000 and has established itself as a leading source of specialist animation education, ranked 12th in the world in 2023.

By focusing on expansion in both new and existing markets, alongside strategic partnerships with the most innovative and ground-breaking organizations in the education sector, Honoris will continue its Education for Impact mission by continuously seizing and transforming new opportunities.