A visa without a passport just for luggage! In Senegal, 30,500 young people flock to the Campus France campuses every year to study in France. From this bottleneck, only 3,800 of them will leave with a visa in their pocket. But these holders of the Holy Grail don't know that one in two foreigners does not obtain a bachelor's degree. Equally grim statistics in Canada: In 2021, the federal government rejected 72% from applications from French-speaking African countries. And like Paris, Ottawa demands too much of Africans to admit them, too little for their success. With the particularity of having to pay up to ten times more for the same right to fail!
serious lack of interpersonal skills
A true financial windfall, the 430,000 sub-Saharan students moving around the world have the right to ask themselves whether they have the right passport to academic success. And to the extent that the hosted country does not have obligation As a result, African middle and upper class families must urgently undergo real introspection.
What is it about their education that is causing their children to fail internationally? Clearly, the skills that allowed the parents themselves to succeed in life were not passed on to their children before the big leap. We are talking here about skills such as autonomy, motivation, ability to navigate a multicultural environment, time and money management, sense of organization and networking, etc.
Returning to the country without a diploma, this young man becomes the symbol of frustrated hopes, the bad horse on which all his savings were bet.
When international students of African origin miss higher education, it is not due to a lack of knowledge, as they do not master law, business administration or engineering. Missing studies due to a cruel lack of interpersonal skills. He doesn't have the keys to his student profession, he's waiting for the codes to decipher the host country and, above all, he's lost in a maze of administrative procedures.
Finally, what is the true cost of failure? There is a specificity of the mobile African student that should not be neglected otherwise the central problem will be lost: their academic failure threatens their families with real displacement. For his parents, he becomes the symbol of dashed hopes, the bad horse on which all the family's savings have been apostatized. Returning to the country without a diploma is social death assured for this young man who has become a zombie, as he is lost between two worlds. And the weight of shame is so great that, instead of returning, she often prefers to serve as an elderly member of the undocumented. In short, shattered destinies, ruined families and growing illegal immigrants.
The spiral of acceptance
It is therefore imperative to stop this infernal spiral of “rejection”. In other words, O African students should no longer agree to “go for sale” or sell themselves at a discount due to lack of preparation. To respond to this mistake in the education system, it is up to Africa to develop the best solutions for its nationals. Starting with the democratization of teaching interpersonal skills from highschool. By promoting, for example, in curricula, one of the continent's most characteristic skills, namely the notion of course intensity, this ability to face and cope with situations of great adversity.
The most recognized private African higher education institutions are responsible for creating the first propaedeutics dedicated to transversal skills in preparation for higher education abroad. Boosting the logic of certification, in partnership with the main universities and embassies of the host countries, to become an important step, if not the new pre-selection chambers for “good files and the best profiles”. In addition to eating their share of the pie, they can act as a public service casualty. Better yet, take on a strategic mission to guarantee families which of their profiles deserves such an investment.
In this adventure far from home, there are also many Africans who shine academically. However, a stay abroad cannot be reduced to admission or a diploma. A stay abroad is first and foremost a story of experience, a deep feeling. In a context of growing influence from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (the BRICS), international students from the continent must be taken seriously by Westerners. Because the future of the relationship between Africa and countries like France or Canada will depend on the treatment reserved for these ambassadors in particular. If they are not the ones who validate the diploma, they are the ones who will put the observation Final.
