Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:41:32.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Beyond Reforms: The Politics of Higher Education Transformation in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In spite of over a half century of interventions and waves of “reforms,” higher education in Africa today consists of institutions, systems, and practices that lack distinct values and goals, or a mission and vision connecting them to the major challenges of their local and global contexts. What is needed in African higher education is true transformation, which will involve practical and epistemological ruptures with previous ways of doing things and a reconstruction of structures, relations, cultures, and institutions. Of particular importance are initiatives that will ensure gender equity, changes in the organization and process of knowledge production, and a reenvisioning of universities' funding sources and mechanisms.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2010

References

Ade Ajayi, J. F., GomaLameck, K. H., and Johnson, G. Ampah. 1996. The African Experience with Higher Education. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Adejumobi, Said. 2004. “Economic Globalization, Market Reforms and Social Welfare Services in West Africa.” In Globalization and Social Policy in Africa, edited by Aina, Tade Akin, Chachage, Chachage S. L., and Annan-Yao, Elisabeth, 2346. Dakar: CODESRIA Books.Google Scholar
Aina, Tade Akin. 1993. “Development Theory and Africa's Lost Decade: Critical Reflections on Africa's Crisis and Current Trends in Development Thinking and Practice.” In Changing Paradigms in Development—South, East and West, edited by Von Troil, Margareta, 1126. Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.Google Scholar
Aina, Tade Akin. 1994. Quality and Relevance: African Universities in the 21st Century. Accra: Association of African Universities.Google Scholar
Anderson, Gregory M. 2002. Building a People's University in South Africa: Race, Compensatory Education, and the Limits of Democratic Reform. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Anyang' Nyong' O, Peter. 1989. “State and Society in Kenya: The Disintegration of the Nationalist Coalitions and the Rise of Presidential Authoritarianism, 1963–1978.” African Affairs 88 (35): 229–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Assie-Lumumba, N'Dri T. 2006. Higher Education in Africa: Crises, Reforms and Transformation. Working Papers Series. Dakar: CODESRIA.Google Scholar
Buchert, Lene, ed. 1998. Education Reform in the South in the 1990's. Working Papers Series. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.Google Scholar
Castells, Manuel. 2009. “Lecture on Higher Education.” Centre for Higher Education Transformation, Cape Town, August 7.Google Scholar
Cloete, Nico, and Moja, Teboho. “Transformation Tensions in Higher Education: Equity, Efficiency and Development.” Social Research 72 (3): 693722.Google Scholar
Doss, C. Evenson, Ruther, R. E., and Ruther, N. L.. 2004Introduction and Overview.” JHEA 2 (1): 114.Google Scholar
Elieshi, Lema, Mbilinyi, Marjorie, and Rajani, Rakesh, eds. 2004. Nyerere on Education. Dar es Salaam: Haki Elimu.Google Scholar
Ghai, Dharam. 2008. “UN Contributions to Development Thinking and Practice.” Development in Practice 18 (6): 767–73.Google Scholar
Ike, Chukwuemeka. 1965. Toads for Supper. London: Collins and Harvill Press.Google Scholar
Kasozi, A. B. K. 2000. University Education in Uganda: Challenges and Opportunities for Reform. Kampala: Fountain Publishers.Google Scholar
Kasozi, A. B. K. 2009. Financing Uganda's Public Universities: An Obstacle to Serving the Public Good. Kampala: Fountain Publishers.Google Scholar
Luhanga, M. L. 2009. The Courage for Change: Re-Engineering the University of Dar Es Salaam. Dar Es Salaam: Dar Es Salaam University Press.Google Scholar
Mama, Amina. 2003. “Restore, Reform, but Do Not Transform: The Gender Politics of Higher Education in Africa.” JHEA 1(1): 101–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, M. 2007. Scholars in the Marketplace: The Dilemmas of Neo-Liberal Reform at Makerere University, 1989–2005. Kampala: Fountain Publishers.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. 2008. “Higher Education, the State and the Market Place.” JHEA 6 (1): 110.Google Scholar
Massen, Peter, and Cloette, Nico. 2002. “Global Reform Trends in Higher Education.” In Transformation in Higher Education: Global Pressures and Local Realities in South Africa, edited by Cloete, N. et al., 1357. Cape Town: Centre for Higher Education Transformation.Google Scholar
Mkandawire, T., and Olukoshi, Adebayo, eds. 1995. Between Liberalisation and Oppression: The Politics of Structural Adjustment in Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA.Google Scholar
Mudimbe, V. Y. The Inventing of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. 1988. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ndebele, S. Njabulo, 2007. Fine Lines from the Box: Further Thoughts about Our Country. Cape Town: Umuzi.Google Scholar
Ogot, Bethwell A. 2009. “Rereading the History and Historiography of the Epistemic Domination and Resistance in Africa.” African Studies Review 52 (1): 122.Google Scholar
Pereira, Charmaine. 2007. Gender in the Making of the Nigerian University System. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Prewitt, Kenneth. 2004. “The Higher Education, Society and Government: Changing Dynamics .” JHEA/RESA 2 (1): 3556.Google Scholar
Ramphele, Mamphela. 2008. Laying Ghosts to Rest: Dilemmas of the Transformation of South Africa.” Cape Town: Talberg Press.Google Scholar
Republic of South Africa, Department of Education. 2008. “Report of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation and Social Cohesion and the Elimination of Discrimination in Public Higher Education Institutions.” November 30.Google Scholar
Sall, Ebrima. 2004. “Alternative Models to Traditional Higher Education: Market Demand, Networks, and Private Sector Challenges.” JHEA/RESA 2 (1): 171212.Google Scholar
Saunders, Stuart. 2000. Vice-Chancellor on a Tightrope: A Personal Account of Climatic Years in South Africa. Cape Town: David Philip Publishers.Google Scholar
Sicherman, Carol. 2005. Becoming an African University, Makerere 1922–2000. Trenton, N. J.: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Sicherman, Carol. 2008. “Makerere's Myths, Makerere's History: A Retrospect.” JHEA 6 (1): 1139.Google Scholar
Teferra, Damtew, and Altbach, Philip G., eds. 2003. African Higher Education: An International Reference Book. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2009. Accelerating Catch-Up: Tertiary Education for Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C.: IBRD.Google Scholar
Zeleza, P. T., and Olukoshi, Adebayo, eds. 2004. African Universities in the Twenty-First Century. Volume 1: Liberalisation and Internationalisation. Dakar: CODESRIA.Google Scholar
Zeleza, P. T., and Olukoshi, Adebayo, eds. 2004. African Universities in the Twenty-first Century. Volume 2: Knowledge and Society. Dakar: CODESRIA.Google Scholar