Extending our pan-African transformative social infrastructure
Honoris retains its place as the first and largest network of private higher education institutions in Africa, a unique educational platform committed to transforming lives through relevant education for lifetime success. Our 15 institutions in beacon markets in Africa including Tunisia, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa, operate across 10 countries, 32 cities, and 70 campuses. We have achieved significant sustainable growth by widening our innovative business model for human talent entering the disrupted world of work.
We grew from 61,000 students in 2021, to 72,000 in 2022 – a sizeable increase from 27,000 students at our inception in 2017.
Our market share increased from 18% reported in 2021 to 21% in 2022, meaning that 1 in 5 students in higher education in Africa are choosing to study at an Honoris institution. From 40 nationalities in 2021, our community of students now covers over 60 nationalities, fostering pan-African unity in a global context aligned to the African Union’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.
Number of students
Students’ nationalities
Welcoming a new institution in 2022: FEDISA Fashion School
In January 2022, we welcomed the pioneering FEDISA Fashion School, South Africa’s leading fashion and design institution, into the network. The addition of FEDISA illustrated our investment in the future of African talent by strengthening the Creative Arts, Fashion, and Design vertical across the group. Though often overlooked, the second largest sector after agriculture in Africa is the fashion and textile industry with an estimated market value of $31 billion in 2021 and growing every year.
Established in 2005, FEDISA Fashion School offers a range of highly specialized accreditations in a holistic approach to the business of fashion, encapsulating advertising, design, and marketing, with the ability to add value and expertise to the rapidly growing e-commerce sector in Africa. With a state-of-the-art campus in the heart of Cape Town, FEDISA expanded its footprint in 2020 despite the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the addition of a campus in Sandton. It holds a network of strong partnerships with fashion industry leaders including several annual collaborations including The Foschini Group, Truworths, South Africa Fashion Week, Cape Union Mart, Markhams, and K-way.
Fashion offers tremendous scope for African countries to participate in regional and global integration, creating jobs and inclusive growth. FEDISA offers a range of highly specialized accreditations in a holistic approach to the business of fashion, encapsulating advertising, design, and marketing, with the ability to add value and expertise to the rapidly growing e-commerce sector in Africa.
“Joining the Honoris United Universities network creates a truly internationalized opportunity for FEDISA and all those associated with the institution. Being recognized as the leading school of fashion in Africa speaks to the excellence of academic and creative provisioning by our incredible faculty and industry collaborators. FEDISA is now optimally positioned to make an even greater pan-African impact on fashion employability and sustainable practices for our graduates.”
– Allen Leroux, Chief Executive Officer at FEDISA
Cross-borders collaboration
Red & Yellow Creative School of Business finalized its expansion into Mauritius by partnering with the Honoris Educational Network, offering critical skills in Digital Marketing to emerging talent in the country. Not only is this a key milestone for both institutions, and the first international expansion for Red & Yellow, but also celebrates the introduction of the island’s first-ever, fully online digital marketing course.
“With the Mauritian government focusing on building infrastructure to enhance connectivity across the island, the launch of the Digital Marketing online short course couldn’t have come at a better time,” says Andrew Allison, Chief Commercial Officer, Red & Yellow Creative School of Business. “We believe that this course has the potential to be hugely beneficial, not only to first-time learners entering the industry; but also to local professionals wanting to continue their educational development, particularly with the addition of practical experience which is a fundamental part of our curriculum.”
– Andrew Allison, Chief Commercial Officer, Red & Yellow Creative School of Business
Collaborative intelligence
We continue to live our core values across the network, in particular nurturing the Collaborative Intelligence of our 3,500+ staff. Our network of 15 institutions in Africa takes best practice learnings from one institution and applies these to another, continually building on the proven success of test and scale approaches and fostering collaboration at all levels to improve the quality of education for African students.
In July 2022, we celebrated the fifth anniversary of Honoris in a unique metaverse event in the virtual Honoris Africa Campus, powered by Gather Town and bringing together our 3,500 staff across all our institutions. The month-long event included masterclasses, events, interactive games, and most importantly recreating the serendipity of real interactions for the people of Honoris across borders. The building of metaverse realities should never be a substitute for the real world. But it is now simply too big to be ignored. We as leaders have an opportunity to shape the metaverse in a way that fosters greater social cohesion, reduces inequality, widens access to education, and acts as a catalyst for social mobility.
We leverage the power of the network to increase access to quality education, connecting minds across Africa to uplift communities and alleviate poverty.
Honoris Annual Academic Summit
Hosted over two days, the 2022 Edition of the Summit took place in Tunisia, the first Honoris market, and focused on the most pressing topics in higher education today including leveraging new technologies for student centricity; ensuring quality in Higher Education; success, and employability for 21st century graduates; and increasing the value of African research.
Following the inaugural event in Morocco in 2019, Honoris continued its mission through cross-border collaboration via digital and hybrid models during the ongoing changes in the pandemic environment. Academic leaders agreed that an education from an Honoris institution is one that focuses on student outcomes, prepares the graduate for 21st century employment, and creates meaningful impact in our communities across the continent.
In his keynote speech, Honoris United Universities Group CEO, Dr. Jonathan Louw, commented, “The organization of this event is a symbol of our strength as one pan-African network, with collaborative intelligence underpinning our core values. Whilst discussing the most important topics in higher education in Africa today, we share inspiration and ideas for collective responses to both challenges and opportunities. Our mission of Education for Impact is brought to life through The People of Honoris’ passion and commitment, addressing our greatest challenges to create a long-lasting positive impact on our societies.”
– Dr. Jonathan Louw, Honoris United Universities Group CEO
Re-imagening Education
Transformation in higher education in Africa can only be realized through the upskilling of teachers. Whilst progress has been made, there remains a considerable knowledge gap in the capacity of educators across the continent ensuring that the future of education, teaching, and learning aligns with the digital transformation seen in the world of work. 2022 welcomed a significant development, our Reimagine Education course, a transversal program across our pan-African academic community, strengthens existing academic models and explores new ones, with over 1,300 teachers trained so far. We continue to roll out the program across the network as we further our growth trajectory.
By nurturing our own talent, we increase a sense of belonging and satisfaction in the People of Honoris. Our employee retention rate remained at over 95% throughout 2022, an increase of 5% from 2021.
Fostering an environment that nurtures and unleashes Africa’s potential is crucial. Collaborative efforts will propel the continent toward a future defined by progress, prosperity, and inclusivity.
