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Your partner in education

The Future is Online

Expanding access to quality higher education.
Taking universities online.
Creating the future, today.

I REPRESENT AN INSTITUTION I AM A STUDENT

About Us

Who we are

Higher Ed Partners Africa (HEP Africa) helps universities expand access to high-quality and affordable higher education through technology-aided learning in sub-Saharan Africa. It is part of a dynamic, global and mission-driven online programme management (OPM) group with presence on four continents, which is a market leader in each of its geographies.

HEP Africa helps partner universities establish their online footprint, grow online enrolments in a sustainable way and ensure an optimal online student experience that leads to high persistence and graduation rates across their online programmes.

What we do

HEP Africa’s mission is to help create better lives for citizens of sub-Saharan Africa by increasing access to high quality and affordable higher education through online delivery of instruction. HEP Africa’s mission is to help create better lives for citizens of sub-Saharan Africa by increasing access to high quality and affordable higher education through online delivery of instruction. We do this by collaborating with progressive universities in the region that embrace technology-aided learning as a strategic imperative. We support them through the conversion of their contact-based programmes into an engaging online format, recruitment of students into these programmes and the delivery of an exceptional online experience that leads to student success. We do this by collaborating with progressive universities in the region that embrace technology-aided learning as a strategic imperative.

Why we do it

We strongly believe that a university education is the key to a thriving, vibrant, fair and equal society. It can transform the trajectory of an entire generation and immediately change peoples' lives and careers.
We seek to impact our world in this domain by collaborating with progressive and mission-driven partner institutions to facilitate access to top quality, affordable higher education for more citizens.

INCREASING ACCESS TO EDUCATION

Our Mission

HEP Africa’s mission is to increase access to top quality and affordable higher education through the online delivery of instruction in sub-Saharan Africa and to help online students succeed. We are investing significantly to achieve this mission, focusing initially on helping African universities increase the continent’s tertiary participation.

Solutions

HEP Africa provides a suite of comprehensive, university-centric services for its partner institutions:

Partner Support

Our team works in collaboration with universities to develop customised plans for successful programme implementation and launch. We provide step-by-step support and guidance to efficiently align systems, processes, technology and teams to deliver an exceptional online student experience.

Change Management

We work with university admissions, registrar, IT and other administrative offices to help align processes, technologies and resources to optimise the online student lifecycle and prepare for imminent enrollment growth on an accelerated academic calendar

Programme Launch and Ongoing Management

Our team prepares a tailored project and implementation plan for the launch of online programmes based on the findings from discovery sessions conducted with each partner institution. Execution of the plan is transparently monitored with each university through a jointly agreed governance structure guided by a Steering Committee.

Once a programme has launched, our team continues to optimise the student experience based on feedback, constantly identifying opportunities for improvement.

Academic Services

Our team supports university faculty and instructional design teams with evidence-based best practices in online teaching and learning from online programme design and planning, assistance in module mapping and development, module delivery, quality reviews and utilisation of learning tools and technologies, all to ensure a successful student experience.

We customise our approach to each partner’s needs, focusing on capacity-building and equipping faculties with information, tools and resources to help them design and deliver successful online programmes.

Marketing

We take a comprehensive, customised and data-driven approach to marketing each university brand and integrate all efforts across a proprietary omni-channel marketing mix (online and offline) most appropriate to each degree category. Our objective is to identify the potential student audience with the highest proclivity for enrolment and persistence.

Our digital expertise includes search engine marketing, content marketing, search engine optimisation, email marketing as well as video and social media marketing across multiple user platforms including mobile, tablet and desktop. We work with Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Bing, as well as additional affiliates.

Our offline capability includes face-to-face field-based marketing, where applicable, and public relations as well as traditional marketing channels including radio, direct mail, newspaper, magazine and outdoor advertising.

Student Recruitment

We have a team of university-designated Enrollment Specialists who work as brand ambassadors for our partner institutions and help prospective students make informed decisions about programme selection. These Specialists guide inquiring students from their initial engagement through the recruitment and enrollment journey, all the way to the beginning of their first online class.

Retention

Student success is what ultimately defines our university partnerships. Assigned to each institution, our Student Success Coordinators support each enrolled online student from the beginning to the end of their degree programme. They consistently and diligently support online students with the knowledge, resources, intervention techniques, encouragement and confidence to help them successfully complete their higher education journey.

White Label

As part of HEP Africa’s contribution to globalise our partner institution’s brands, increase speed to market and reduce costs, we provide a white label end-to-end e-commerce platform that seamlessly supports the entire student life cycle. We also provide white-label content for high-demand degrees and micro-credentials that can be partner-branded and which is highly customizable.