Regional
African Universities Packed to the Rafters, Falling Down
According to a feature-length report in the New York Times, Africa’s best universities, “the grand institutions that educated a revolutionary generation of nation builders and statesmen, doctors and engineers, writers and intellectuals,” are collapsing. The article blames a culture of self-inflicted mismanagement and neglect, in addition to international development policies that for decades have favored basic education over higher learning even as a population explosion propels more young people than ever toward already strained institutions. This environment, the article continues, is forcing the best and brightest from countries across Africa to seek their education and fortunes abroad and depriving dozens of nations of the homegrown expertise that could lift millions out of poverty.
As a result, universities across Africa have become hotbeds of political discontent. In Ivory Coast, student union leaders played a large role in stirring up xenophobia that led to civil war. In Nigeria, elite schools have been overrun by violent criminal gangs. Those gangs have hired themselves out to politicians, contributing to the deterioration of the electoral process there. In Senegal, universities have been racked repeatedly by sometimes violent strikes by students seeking improvements in their living conditions and increases in the tiny stipends for living expenses. Students have refused to attend classes and set up burning barricades on a central avenue that runs past the university.
Today’s reality sits in stark contrast to the early years of postcolonial Africa when venerable institutions such as the University of Ibadan [1] in southwest Nigeria was regarded as one of the best universities in the British Commonwealth; Makerere University [2] in Uganda was considered the Harvard of Africa, training a whole generation of postcolonial leaders; and in Senegal, Cheikh Anta Diop University [3], then known as the University of Dakar, drew students from across francophone Africa and transformed them into doctors, engineers and lawyers whose credentials were considered equal to those of their French counterparts.
The disarray of Africa’s universities did not happen by chance. In the 1960s, universities were seen as the incubator of the vanguard that would drive development in the young nations of newly liberated Africa, and postcolonial governments spent lavishly on campuses, research facilities, scholarships and salaries for academics. But corruption and mismanagement led to the economic collapses that swept much of Africa in the 1970s, and universities were among the first institutions to suffer.
When the World Bank and International Monetary Fund came to bail out African governments with their economic reforms, higher education was usually low on the list of priorities. Fighting poverty required basic skills and literacy, not doctoral students. In the mid-1980s nearly a fifth of the World Bank’s education spending worldwide went to higher education. A decade later, it had dwindled to just 7 percent. Meanwhile, welcome money flooded into primary and secondary education. But it set up a time bomb: as more young people got a basic education, more wanted to go to college. In 1984, just half of Senegal’s children went to primary school. Twenty years later that number is up to more than 90 percent.
Attempts to reduce the student population by admitting fewer students are seen by current administrations as political suicide — student unions play a big role in elections, and the country’s leaders are fearful of widespread discontent among the educated youth.
– The New York Times [4]
May 20, 2007
Gambia
New Academy to Promote Sciences
The Gambian government has announced the creation of its first science academy. Opened in a bid to address the shortage of scientists in the country, the academy will prepare students at primary and secondary level for university-level science, technology and mathematics programs. Gambian president, Yahya Jammeh, initiated the project that created the academy — based in the western town of Kanilai — that is scheduled to open in September 2008. Construction will start in September of this year. Chair of research and strategy at the University of Gambia [5], Momodou Jain, told SciDev.Net that this is a first step toward putting science at the center of Gambian economic development. The Taiwanese Government has donated US$344,718 to the project — 20 percent of the total costs to run the project for one year. Other funding is being sourced from the private sector, foreign donors and the government.
– Scidev.net [6]
June 12, 2007
Kenya
Education Tops Government Budget Agenda
With the Kenyan government’s recent decision to waive fees at secondary school adding to the costs and of funding primary education, education once again ranks as the top line expense in this year’s budget. From this year the government will cover tuition fees for public secondary school students in a bid to reduce costs increase the number of enrollments among secondary school-age children. Currently, an estimated 30 percent of eligible students are enrolled in secondary schools.
– The Nation [7]
June 14, 2007
Rwanda
Degree Programs May be Cut from 4 to 3 years
The Ministry of Education [8] announced in May plans to cut the duration of degree programs from four to three years. The move is intended as a means of harmonizing the country’s education system with other East African Community [9] (EAC) member states and European nations. Rwanda (and Burundi) joined the EAC last November. The ministry said the move will also help reduce education costs.
– The New Times [10]
May 13, 2007
South Africa
More Skilled Workers Needed
South Africa’s economy is growing fast, and with spending growing faster than productive capacity, it is in danger of overheating, reports The Economist. Due to a countrywide skills shortage there does not appear to be a quick, easy solution. According to the country’s largest bank, ABSA, managers are battling to cope with “severe shortages of skilled labor and production capacity constraints,” reflected in shortages of goods and services.
The South African Institute of Race Relations [11] estimates that some 850,000 whites have left the country since 1995, reducing the white population (which, for historical reasons, is still the most skilled segment) to around 4.3 million people from more than 5 million a decade ago. ABSA believes that “the vast majority” of those who have left the country—or are contemplating doing so—are skilled people between the ages of 20 and 40. This white exodus is being compounded, according to the bank, by the increasing emigration of mixed-race, Asian and black professionals, especially from the public sector, which is losing medical, technical and engineering skills very rapidly.
In addition, the skills shortage is being exacerbated by three other factors: the growing impact of HIV-AIDS on the supply of skills, especially in key areas such as teaching and nursing, and on productivity levels across the economy; tight immigration laws; and a serious deterioration in education standards at schools, which are plagued by high drop-out rates.
– The Economist [12]
June 13, 2007
Uganda
UNESCO Report Praises Battle Against Graft
Uganda has had good success in combating corruption in its education system, according to a report [13] by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO [14]). The report written by Jacques Hallak and Muriel Poisson noted that in the early 1990s, only 13 percent of the money granted per student actually got to the recipient while the rest was taken by corrupt local officials. As a result of a national education campaign, it is now estimated that 85 percent of allocated funds are reaching their rightful recipients. The report titled “Corrupt schools, corrupt universities: What can be done” was released in early June.
– New Vision [15]
June 8, 2007