Climate change education (CCE) is a vital tool for addressing Africa’s vulnerability to climate change and advancing sustainable development. Its impact is even more significant when integrated into higher educational systems. Notably, Higher Education serves as a catalyst for innovation and nation-building and, hence, an essential medium for driving sustainability efforts across present and future generations. However, evidence suggests that the adoption of CCE in African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) remains low. Few HEIs have specialized courses on the subject, while others have an integrated approach within related subjects like geography and environmental sciences. This underscores the necessity to identify the factors behind the slow uptake of CCE across the continent. Given this premise, our study seeks to explore the nature of the barriers as well as existing and future opportunities for scaling up climate change education in African HEIs. Among other factors, we identified resource limitations, institutional barriers, and socio-political challenges as the primary constraints to CCE uptake in Africa. On the other hand, the increasing climate commitment and the development of regional climate institutions equally provide a unique opportunity for capacity building, knowledge exchange and the spread of CCE across African HEI. Moreover, the rapid development of affordable digital communication and computing has the potential to increase networking and collaborative efforts between climate change learners and scientists across the region. These prospects signal a need for regional governments to multiply their efforts toward providing an environment for the development and uptake of suitable CCE programs.