The best computer science universities in Africa

The coveted computer science degree has promised graduates six-figure salaries and exciting careers in high-tech spaces since the personal computer took off in the 1990s.

As an academic discipline, computer science dates back even further. In the 1960s, Purdue University became the first major institution to found a department dedicated to the practice, complete with history books written by faculty members because, at that point, none existed.

These days, the U.S., China, and Singapore are often associated with top-tier computer science degrees, but there are highly respected universities in nearly every corner of the world offering an education in the field. Revelo collected rankings from U.S. News and World Report to identify the top 10 universities for computer science in Africa as part of a larger global analysis.

In countries across Africa, secondary education curricula have increasingly moved from teaching basic computer skills to focusing on computer science skills. It's a young continent: The median age is 19, and more than a third of the world's youth aged 15 to 24 will live in Africa by 2050, according to the U.N. World Population Prospects 2022. Despite Africa's low rates of internet access, universities are working to meet the demand of its young population, encouraging post-secondary computer science education.

Web designers, software developers, computer network architects, research scientists, and systems administrators all leverage computer science knowledge as the basis of their job. And it's a job that analysts project to be in high demand—even as layoffs at major tech companies dominate headlines.

The typical U.S. worker in a computer science-based career today earns an income of $100,530, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau also estimates the industry will require 377,500 new workers each year for the next decade, as the industry is set to grow faster than the average growth rate of all other industries.

With the tech industry facing criticism for lacking diversity and products like artificial intelligence built on mostly white male perspectives, employers could benefit from looking beyond traditional institutions in recruiting efforts. From 2010-2020, the number of women graduating from U.S. schools with computer science degrees rose only 3%, and graduates from underrepresented racial groups remained flat at just over 20% of all graduates.

U.S. News and World Report ranked 778 universities globally with at least 250 academic research papers, calculating its subject scores on a 0-100 scale based on the number of publications and citations an institution received, its global and regional research reputation, and other factors.