Original title: From Employability to Human Flourishing: A Governance Framework for University-Industry Partnerships in African Higher Education
Sixbert Sangwa · September 2026
Universities often partner with companies to help students find jobs and boost the economy. But focusing only on jobs leaves out a bigger question: what should these partnerships actually achieve for people's lives? To fix this, researchers built a new guide for African higher education, using Rwanda as their main policy anchor alongside other African evidence. They looked at how colleges and businesses work together. They found these partnerships can improve classes, workplace training, innovation, and job transitions. However, they also found real dangers. Companies might gain too much power, steer classes only toward narrow, short-term skills, ignore work quality, or leave out some students unfairly. In response, the researchers created the FUIP framework. It treats employability as just one piece of human flourishing across nine key areas, including equity, dignity, and academic integrity. This tool gives schools specific questions to protect students and public learning.
Imagine a family deciding what to cook for dinner. If they only think about what is cheapest and fastest, they might eat the same bland meal every night and miss out on nutrition and enjoyment. Now suppose a neighbor offers to pay for ingredients, but only if the family cooks exactly what the neighbor likes. In this paper, universities and companies are like the family and the neighbor, and the framework ensures the partnership considers not just jobs (the cheap meal) but also fairness, creativity, and well-being (a full, balanced dinner).
This matters because university-industry partnerships in Africa are often judged only by whether graduates get jobs. But that narrow focus can lead to bad outcomes: companies shaping curricula for short-term needs, students from poor backgrounds locked out, and work that is dull or exploitative. This paper offers a way to design partnerships that also protect academic freedom, ensure fair access, and promote dignified work, so that universities serve people's full potential, not just the economy.
The abstract does not report empirical results from implementing the framework, so its practical effectiveness remains untested. The evidence base is limited to 24 contemporary scholarly records plus one directly relevant study, and the analysis is anchored primarily on Rwanda with selected African comparisons, so generalizability across the continent is uncertain. The framework is normative and diagnostic, not prescriptive about specific policies or outcomes.
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From Employability to Human Flourishing: A Governance Framework for University-Industry Partnerships in African Higher Education — Sixbert Sangwa — EdArXiv — doi:10.35542/osf.io/b7gea_v1
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.