Gathering will agree “firm commitments” for bloc’s contentious summit next month
Education ministers from the Brics group of emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—met in South Africa this week to hear how universities have boosted efforts to expand the bloc’s reach.
The ministers and their senior officials are meeting 12-13 July at the Skukuza Safari Lodge in Kruger National Park to agree commitments before Brics heads of state gather in Johannesburg next month.
Expanding the bloc to boost it geopolitically is one of the big agenda points for the August summit. So far, a total of 10 countries have applied for membership, including three in Africa: Algeria, Egypt and Ethiopia. Namibia’s education ministers was set to join the ministers’ meeting this week.
Universities could lead the way in the bloc’s expansion, a meeting of the Brics Network University on 5-6 July at the North-West University in South Africa was told. The network is a union of universities in Brics countries that aims to enhance research and education cooperation.
“The good work done through the university network has inspired those universities outside Brics to want to be part and parcel of this. So it’s going to be important what advice we are going to prepare for the summit of leaders,” Nkosinathi Sishi, director-general of the department of higher education and training, said afterwards.
Contentious summit
The bloc’s five member countries will make “firm commitments” at this week’s meeting, in areas including entrepreneurship development, mutual recognition of qualifications and global university rankings, South Africa’s higher education department said.
Hosting a dinner on 12 July, South African higher education minister Blade Nzimande said the Brics countries need systems to increase the exchange of students, education experts and academics.
"We must continue to encourage Brics academics to research relevant topics within Brics including the implications of the proposed Brics currency and the role of the New Development Bank of Brics. It is the research community of Brics that is going to assist to elaborate this issue better," Nzimande said.
The commitments agreed this week will feed into the Brics leader summit, which is expected to be held in person on 22-24 August, despite Russian president Vladimir Putin facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
South Africa is a member of the ICC, yet its relationship with the international judicial body has grown strained since the government refusal in 2017 to arrest former Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir during a visit.
Many global industrial powers, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have also slammed South Africa for refusing to denounce the Russian invasion of Ukraine and choosing a more neutral approach to the conflict.