Across Africa, the boom in private universities is masking a crisis of relevance. When institutions prioritize enrollment over outcomes, they risk becoming diploma factories instead of engines of economic development.

By the time a young person reaches university, their relationship to learning is already shaped. Employability is not just a set of skills—it is a posture formed through years of schooling and mentorship. As corporations step into education, the real opportunity lies not only in supporting universities, but in shaping the foundations of learning itself.

Universities and employers have long treated education and work as separate worlds, connected only at graduation. But today’s graduates often arrive in organisations fluent in theory yet uncertain in practice. As workplaces evolve faster than curricula, corporations are realising they can no longer leave the full preparation of their future workforce to academia alone.