The School of Pan African Studies (“the School,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy and being transparent about the technologies we use. This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are, how we use them on our website (panafricanstudies.net), and your rights to control our use of them.

 

In line with our mission to provide decolonized, industry-aligned education for the global diaspora and continental professionals, we ensure our digital infrastructure respects your data sovereignty while maintaining a high-quality educational experience.

 

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. They are widely used by website owners to make their websites work, or to work more efficiently, as well as to provide reporting information.

• First-party cookies are cookies set by the website you are visiting (e.g., cookies set by panafricanstudies.net).
• Third-party cookies are set by a domain other than the one you are visiting (e.g., analytics services or video hosting platforms).

 

We use cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical reasons for our website and Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to operate. Others enable us to track and target the interests of our learners and visitors to enhance the experience on our online platform.
The cookies used on our site fall into the following categories:

 

Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features, such as access to secure areas, course portals, and student dashboards. Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website to you, you cannot refuse them without impacting how our site functions.

 

Performance and Analytics Cookies
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used (e.g., which African Philosophy or Politics modules are most visited) or to help us measure the effectiveness of our “brain gain” outreach and recruitment campaigns.

 

Functionality Cookies
These cookies are used to enhance the performance and functionality of our website but are non-essential to its use. However, without these cookies, certain functionality (like video playback of lectures or remembering your login details) may become unavailable.

 

Targeting and Advertising Cookies
These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests in Pan-African development and professional certificates.

 

The School of Pan African Studies utilises the following specific types of cookies:

• Session Cookies: These are temporary and expire once you close your browser. They help our students navigate through the curriculum without having to re-enter information.
• Persistent Cookies: These remain on your device for a set period. We use these to remember your preferences (such as language or region) to better serve our global diaspora community.
• Learning Management System (LMS) Cookies: Specific cookies used to track course progress, quiz completions, and engagement within our professional certificate programmes.

 

You have the right to decide whether to accept or reject cookies. You can exercise your cookie rights by setting your preferences in the Cookie Consent Manager provided on our website.

• Browser Controls: You can set or amend your web browser controls to accept or refuse cookies. If you choose to reject cookies, you may still use our website, though your access to some functionality and areas of our website may be restricted.
• Disabling Most Interest-Based Advertising: Most advertising networks offer you a way to opt out of targeted advertising. If you would like to find out more information, please visit AboutAds.info or Your Online Choices.

 

As the School of Pan African Studies serves a global audience, including learners across the African continent and the wider diaspora, information collected via cookies may be transferred to, and processed in, countries other than the country in which you are resident. These countries may have data protection laws that are different from the laws of your country. We take appropriate safeguards to require that your personal information will remain protected in accordance with this Cookie Policy and the UK GDPR.

 

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to the cookies we use or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. Please therefore re-visit this Cookie Policy regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies.

 

If you have any questions about our use of cookies or other technologies, please email us at the contact address provided on our main website or reach out to our Data Protection Officer.