Higher Education in Africa. Crises, Reforms and Transformation

Table of Contents

Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................. 7 Chapter One Origins and Mission of African Universities .................................................... 18 Diversity of Higher Education Institutions in Africa Today............................. 18 Origins and Development of African Higher Education ................................... 24 The Creation of Higher Education Institutions in the Colonial and Early Post-colonial Periods...................................................................... 32 Problematising Higher Education and Its Role in National Development ................................................................................ 42 Chapter Two Cultural Colonisation by Force and by Choice .................................................. 48 The Dependency Trap ........................................................................................... 48 Dependency and Education: A General Framework ......................................... 50 Dependency and African Higher Education ...................................................... 53 Chapter Three The Crisis, Its Consequences, and the Call for Change .................................. 59 Profile of the Current Situation ............................................................................. 59 The Local/Global Nexus and the Conditions for Crisis ................................... 61 Prescriptions of the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) ..................... 67 The Full-Blown Crisis in the 1980s and 1990s ................................................... 71 Recommendations and Search for Solutions Articulated in the Studies ......... 85 Chapter Four Waves of Reforms and Recent Innovations ...................................................... 93 Conceptualising Educational Change ................................................................. 93 The First Wave of Higher Education Reforms in Post-colonial Africa ............ 96 Recent Reforms and Innovations ....................................................................... 104 Chapter Five New Challenges within the Global and Local Objective Conditions ......... 114 Globalisation and the Relentless Cycle of the Debt Burden ............................ 114 Violence, Armed Conflicts, and Higher Education Development in Africa .. 121 Human Resource Loss: HIV/AIDS and the ‘Brain Drain’ .............................. 124 Higher Education in Africa: Crises, Reforms, and Transformation 6 Chapter Six Structural Change, Transformation, and Localisation of Higher Education as a Public Good.......................................................................... 129 Re-conceptualising Higher Education as a Public Good ................................ 129 The Quest for Ownership and the New Meaning of Relevance ..................... 133 Agents and Tools for Structural Change: The State, People, and Information and Communication Technologies ................................. 136 The Special Role of Africans in the Diaspora in Higher Education Development in Africa ................................................................................... 145 Partnership and Higher Education for Development ...................................... 147 Engendering African Higher Education ........................................................... 151 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 155 Bibliography......................................................................................................... 158 ...