Rethinking Academic Citizenship in Africa through Early Career Academics (ECAs), Technology and Youth Engagement: Toward Brain Re-Engineering (BRECR)

Technological advancement and mindset re-engineering are crucial for empowering disenfranchised African youth towards early academic citizenship. Innovation and creativity are age-driven; hence, there is an increasing need to encourage and engage involve youths in the strategic sectors of African economies, including education, agriculture, governance or resource management. The article is therefore, a clarion call for greater collaboration in achieving this goal of creating a better future for Africans and the next generations. This commences with interrogating how the youths are allowed to participate in academic citizenship in Africa. The article highlights the challenges facing academic citizenship thereby suggesting strategies to enhance the development and engagement of early-career academics (ECAs) by adopting the Brain Re-Engineering (BRECR) Initiative. Interestingly, the BRECR concept relies on five pillars: mindset or perception change; ideation and entrepreneurship; technology amalgamation; sustainability and circular economy, and social equity in public policy. BRECR critiques the youth-constrained involvement in strategic economic sectors, and the proponent of BRECR advocates for technological and scientific advancements (first in agriculture and other strategies sectors of developing economies). The article superimposes BRECR’s prescribed solution to the challenges of grooming ECAs across HEIs in Africa. It further recommends ethical governance, perception change, empowerment of ECAs, identification of youth participation hindrances, and promotion of ECA mentorship programmes in Africa. It concludes that ECAs have a crucial role in promoting scientific research, education, technology, and social development, and should be encouraged to foster academic citizenship and encourage fresh, innovative, and original ideas within the evolving educational landscape.