Enhancing Software Engineering Education in Africa through a Metaversity

Abstract

Software engineering education requires a new boost in African higher education, because of the high demand for professionals, caused by the fast increasing internet connections calling for meaningful applications and governmental initiatives like Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), and the current situation where universities graduate software engineers that cannot serve in the job markets. Inspired by the Conceive, Design, Implement and Operate (CDIO) model for engineering education and the CATI model for curriculum reform focusing on contextually relevant education in the Global South, we introduce how a complementary model for a conventional university, i.e. metaversity, can enhance software engineering education in Africa. Metaversity uses the full potential of the metaverse, requiring fast internet, and is a balance between access to the globally best expertise for technical problems and design of solutions to contextually relevant problems on site. It combines the global and the local contexts in software engineering education.