News > A better model than the Africanised university

A better model than the Africanised university

2018/02/05 09:24:29 AM

AFRICA

Eric Fredua-Kwarteng and Samuel Ofosu
02 February 2018 University World News Global Edition Issue 491

Proponents of the ‘Africanised university’ are over-consumed with the politics of decolonisation – as if that is the only developmental challenge facing the continent when there are many more. It absolves Africans from responsibility for their own actions and inaction.
African countries are yet to find or construct a university education model relevant to their development needs and aspirations.

The classical university model inherited from the European colonial masters or transplanted in Africa has been ineffectual in fulfilling those needs and aspirations for two fundamental reasons. They produce graduates with irrelevant skills, knowledge and dispositions, given the monumental development tasks facing their nation-states.

In addition, classical universities have practically little to zero direct involvement in the development activities taking place in their nation-states. This suggests that they are disconnected from the cultural institutions of the societies where they operate.

Presently, three broad university models, consisting of the technical university, the Africanised university and the developmental university, are in the spotlight for discussion and critique in Africa.

The technical university has found some support in Africa owing to its central focus on engineering and the possibility of improving the technological limitations of Africa. But what is the difference, if any, between the technical university and the ‘technology university’? If the ‘technology university’ could not improve the technological limitations of Africa, how could a technical university do any better?

Historical context

Historically, the Africanisation of African universities was part of a broad decolonisation movement at the beginning of the post-independence era in the 1960s in Africa. It was determined that African universities would mirror African societies and cultures if their faculties were African and their curricula increasingly Africanised.

However, as time went on the Africanisation project lost much of its momentum as doyens of the African political independence movement were toppled in military coup d’états. Another crucial factor was that the world prices of African exports dropped fast. The combined result was that many African countries went through a cascade of political and economic instability.

Recently, a group of indigenous African scholars have been seriously rethinking the Africanisation project, especially in South Africa where the main focus is on reforming higher education curricula and syllabi so they are relevant to the lived experiences, realities and cultural identities of indigenous South Africans.

The developmental university is a concept that took off in the mid-1980s. Until recently, most experts and researchers, including those in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, had written off African universities as producing only marginal effects on African society and economy. Instead they favoured channelling funds into primary and secondary education.

At the relatively recent Dakar African Higher Education Summit, the former South African president Thabo Mbeki endorsed the idea that African universities should be placed at the centre of the national development agenda and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan implored African universities to be generators of research data to African governments for evidence-based policy-making.

Such suggestions highlight general dissatisfaction with the nebulous mission of most African public-funded universities as producers of human resources.

A developmental university is any university that focuses on contributing to all aspects of the development of its home country. It does so through research, analysis, teaching, learning, advocacy and its relationship with industry and government.

The development of any society is essentially an internal process and culture is at its core. It is therefore practically impossible for the developmental university to analyse Africa’s development problems and needs without an intimate knowledge and understanding of the nature of African culture.

This is an area of interest for both the developmental university and the Africanisation project, but it does not mean that culture is something frozen in the past and a focus on culture should not be used, for instance, to justify the oppression of women’s rights.

Different pedagogical approaches

One major difference between the Africanised university and the developmental university is transformative pedagogy.

While the Africanisation project advocates restructuring the university curricula to infuse it with African art, philosophy and social sciences, it is silent about the kind of effective pedagogies that can be used to deliver the contents of those courses and guide African youth to develop the skills, knowledge and dispositions needed for personal growth and social, political and economic development.

Passive pedagogy which takes learning as memorisation and reproduction of facts, figures and rules has not served the African continent well and has produced university graduates without creativity, vision, problem-solving or analytical skills.

The developmental university, meanwhile, is a strong advocate of transformative pedagogy by default.

Transformative pedagogy ensures that students have opportunities to interrogate their own attitudes, beliefs and mentalities as part of their preparation for wider social transformation. It encourages students to analyse African development challenges and needs and formulate action-oriented solutions to development issues through inquiry, case studies and peer collaboration, research, problem-solving and problem-learning.

It also establishes deep connections and relationships with the local economy and society via student internship, externship, community events, place visits, consultation, research projects and public forums dedicated to innovation and inventions.

Indigenous faculty and the status of women

The replacement of foreign lecturers and professors with indigenous Africans is another point of difference between the developmental university and the Africanised university. Since the developmental university is African development-centred, it embraces non-African lecturers and professors who could contribute to African development. After all, are indigenous Africans the only people who are concerned with the development plight of the African continent? The response is an emphatic no.

It is argued that African lecturers and professors will have more of an interest and stake in Africa’s progress than their foreign counterparts. That is an optimistic argument that is not backed up by the evidence, whether from academics or political leaders.

African women play a critical role in African development. Yet the Africanisation project has maintained a consistent silence on the status and role of African women in African contemporary development. The developmental university is intent on developing all Africa’s human resources, including women.

Africanisation of knowledge

This brings us to the Africanisation of knowledge. Some African scholars take this as synonymous with an indigenous African knowledge system and a counter-narrative to the domination of the Western canon of knowledge.

A critical question that should be asked is this: How many African lecturers and professors are experts in African indigenous knowledge systems? In fact, it has almost become an African dictum that “the more highly an African is educated, the less likely she/he knows about the cultural practices, institutions or roots of his/her African heritage”.

The definition of Africanisation of knowledge as an oppositional narrative to Western canon of knowledge is problematic. It is more constructive to regard the African knowledge system as an alternative perspective of perceiving the world and its elements.

Other African scholars have framed Africanisation of knowledge as a body of knowledge produced by Africans in Africa to be used on the continent for Africans.

This is a narrow definition in that not only Africans domiciled in Africa produce knowledge relevant to African development. For this reason, we look at Africanised knowledge as any knowledge that has relevance for African development, either through adaptation or direct application. No group has successfully produced all its knowledge needs without borrowing from other groups.

Furthermore, some African scholars view Africanisation of knowledge as a process of refocusing on Africa – its conditions, realities, identities, challenges and aspirations. If this is an acceptable definition of Africanisation of knowledge, it dovetails with the central mission of the developmental university – to produce research to aid development.

An open, responsible approach

It is our contention that the developmental university is a more progressively conceptualised model for the African continent than the Africanised university. Proponents of the Africanised university are over-consumed with the politics of decolonisation as if that is the only developmental challenge facing the continent.

Deep-seated corruption in government, human rights abuses, tribalism, stagnant technology, low agricultural productivity, the subjugation of women and incompetent leadership are equally important development challenges plaguing the African continent. Attempts to blame these issues on colonialism absolve Africans from any responsibilities for their own actions and inaction.

From whatever angle we look at it, the developmental university is more realistic, open yet critical, pragmatic and holistic in its focus on African development.

Dr Eric Fredua-Kwarteng is a policy consultant in Canada. Samuel Ofosu is academic affairs officer at the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, Ghana.