Upon
attaining independence, African countries’ expectations were that universities would
be the primary institutions to produce leaders who would propel their countries
to prosperity. According to Ghanaian scholar Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, Africans
expected their universities to build capacity “to develop and manage their
resources, alleviate the poverty of the majority of their people, and close the
gap between them and the developed world.” African countries hoped that
universities would achieve these goals by providing a “home-grown leadership in
areas in need of rapid material and social development.” The way to think of
these goals was through what Sawyerr calls a “developmental university”, an
institution of higher learning that was expected to contribute to a country’s
development.
Five
decades since independence, what have African universities contributed to the leadership
of their respective countries? In this article, we will turn this question onto the
Malawian leadership landscape and assess the extent to which our universities
have produced, or failed to, the kind of leadership Malawians have always
desired. Regardless of the fact that none of the four presidents Malawi has had
thus far has been a product of a Malawian university, graduates from our
institutions of higher learning are in various leadership positions in the
public and private sectors. We discuss why the universities have fallen short
of expectations, and what solutions are being suggested by some of Africa’s
most prominent intellectuals.
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| Part of the Chancellor College campus, University of Malawi |
As
far as educating a new generation of Africans, Sawyerr argues that African
universities have succeeded in fulfilling some of these expectations. He says
had it not been for these universities, it is hard to imagine where African
countries would have been today. But while African universities have made
remarkable contributions to the addressing of African problems, these
institutions have also failed their respective countries, particularly in the
area of leadership both in the public sector as well as in the private sector. The
causes of the failures are to be found in the political economy of dominant
global ideology, within the institutions themselves, and in the political
leadership of African countries.
Sawyerr
has discussed the failures of the African university in the broader context of
the global influence exercised by international financial institutions and
their neoliberal prescriptions (“Challenges Facing African Universities:
Selected Issues”, African Studies Review,
Vol 47 No 1, 2004). He singles out the World Bank’s Structural Adjustment
Programmes of the 1980s, which he calls the “lost decade,” for causing
“enormous social costs, including the deindustrialization of national economies
and the substantial loss of national control over economic and social
policymaking.
Professor
Thandika Mkandawire, a world-renowned Malawian development economist, has also
written extensively on this very topic. He has argued that the anti-tertiary
education policies that the World Bank adopted, and has since disavowed, robbed
African countries of opportunities to educate a professional class of
technocrats. The structural problems African economies experience today have
their origins in that era of missed opportunities.
The death of 'Intellectualism' in
African universities
In
a 2003 lecture given at the University of Nairobi, Professor Ali Mazrui decried
the death of “intellectualism” in the African university. He argued that for a
university to help develop its society, first the society has to help develop
the university. He identified three crucial relationships that mediated the
role of the university and its dealings with the wider world: political
distance from the state, cultural closeness to the society, and intellectual
links to wider scholarly and scientific values. He argued that it was possible
for a university to be funded by the state and still maintain its political
distance, as is the case in North America, Europe and elsewhere. He cited the
example of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki whom he said had surrendered his
chancellorship of six public universities.
Mazrui
said African universities were “colonial in origin and disproportionately
European in traditions,” adding “African universities are the major instruments
and vehicles of cultural westernization on the continent.” This was where the
African university faced its most formidable challenge in its attempt to be of
relevance to its society (“Towards Re-africanizing African Universities: Who
Killed Intellectualism in the Post Colonial Era?” Lecture given at the
University of Nairobi, published in Alternatives:
Turkish Journal of International Relations, Vol 2 No 3&4, 2003).
In
a more recent lecture, which we discussed at length in The Lamp (September-October 2011), Ugandan intellectual Professor
Mahmood Mamdani echoed Mazrui’s characterization of the African university.
Mamdani said the Western university system on which African universities
modeled themselves was out of touch with African problems. He said the African
university did not prepare students for the conditions in which they would
work, conditions they would be expected to have a good grasp of if they were to
make meaningful contributions to development (“The importance of research in a
university”, Pambazuka News, Issue
526, 21st April, 2011).
Academics versus politicians
But
an important factor in the failures of the African university has been the
relationship between African academics and African political leadership. In
Malawi, the relationship between the University of Malawi (until recently the
only university in the country) and Malawi’s political leadership has always
been a testy one. Although the establishment of a national university was one of
his major dreams upon the attainment of independence, founding president Dr.
Hastings Kamuzu Banda detested a university that exercised intellectual
autonomy. In his 2003 book Rethinking
Africa’s Globalization: Volume 1: The Intellectual Challenges, Malawian
intellectual and economic historian Professor Paul Tiyambe Zeleza has described
the brand of African leaders in the mould of Kamuzu Banda as having been
“suspicious and dismissive of academics.”
One
tragic consequence of this relationship was, argues Zeleza, the reduction of
scholarly work to “sycophancy.” Academics competed amongst themselves to outdo
each other in singing praises of the political leadership and concocting
subversive plots to bring each other down. One Malawian academic who bore the
brunt of this brand of politics of destruction was Dr. Jack Mapanje, a leading
poet and then chair of the English Department in the 1980s. Mapanje has
described, in his 2011 memoir And Crocodiles
Are Hungry At Night, the circumstances that led to his betrayal by his
superiors at Chancellor College and his detention without trial for three and a
half years.
Zeleza
points out that the authoritarianism of the state meant that universities were
also ran in authoritarian ways. The state appointed senior university
administrators who appointed heads of units, who made recommendations for
promotions based not on merit but on levels of sycophancy. But Zeleza
apportions part of the blame for this state of affairs on the African
universities themselves. He writes: “Besotted by opportunism, careerism,
parochialism, factionalism, and ideological intolerance, intellectuals have
often weakened their collective defense against state assaults.” In the case of
Malawi, “intellectuals not only conceded political space to the state, but
sometimes assisted in authenticating its authoritarianism.”
The
authoritarianism also meant that institutional decisions were top-down rather
than democratic, which marred communication, and strained relations between
lecturers and university administration. It is in this context that African
universities strayed from their missions, and became part of the larger
problems that impeded national development. Writes Zeleza: “buildings decayed,
libraries and laboratory facilities deteriorated, and the culture of learning
and knowledge production degenerated.” This is the history that informed the
academic freedom struggle Chancellor College lecturers fought in 2011, and
continue to in their rejection of the proposed University of Malawi Act 2012.
In
a personal anecdote that illustrates the extent of intellectual degeneration in
Malawi, Zeleza writes about visiting Chancellor College in 1996 and discovering
that the university bookstore had been closed, and the building was being
converted into offices. Close to two decades later, the University of Malawi
continues to operate without university bookshops in its constituent colleges.
The implication of this situation is a pernicious type of intellectual
deprivation that leads to students who graduate from university without
adequate preparation for the roles society has carved out for them. Zeleza points
out that failure to address problems of intellectual quality in African universities
is tantamount to condemning “African students to intellectual backwardness and
dependency, both of which constitute a monumental crime against Africa’s
development and future.”
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| The Great Hall, Chancellor College |
Do universities’ mission statements
matter?
Is
it still possible for Malawian universities, public and private, to assume
their rightful roles in fulfilling societal expectations and providing for the
country a cadre of graduates who can contribute to national development in a
more meaningful way? A cursory glance at the mission statements of six public
and private Malawian universities reveals a common concern with providing a high
quality education that meets the needs of the country.
Malawi’s
universities want to “advance
knowledge, promote wisdom and understanding and provide services by engaging in
teaching and research and by facilitating the dissemination, promotion, and
preservation of learning responsive to the needs of Malawi and the world”
(University of Malawi). They desire to meet the “technological, social and
economic needs of individuals and communities in Malawi,” (Mzuzu University),
and to train professionals who manage the country’s agriculture and natural
resources (Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources).
They
want to “contribute to the integral development of the nation” (Catholic
University of Malawi), and to equip graduates “with knowledge, skills and
competencies that are necessary for service to God and mankind” (Malawi
Adventist University). They aspire to “educate and inspire students to become
principled leaders who will transform society for the glory of God” (University
of Livingstonia), and to train “competent scholars with relevant skills such as
problem solving, decision making, research and analytical skills to contribute
towards the improvement of social economic development of the country and
beyond” (Exploits University).
Blantyre
International University talks of providing “high quality university education
for this century,” while Skyway University aims “to provide quality services in
a professional and nationally-conscious manner, with integrity within a
conducive learning environment.”
Cultivating new leaders
It
is one thing for universities to have elaborate visions and impressive mission
statements, and another for them to live up to those lofty ambitions. In a
paper titled “Learning and Leadership: Exploring the linkages between higher
education and developmental leadership,” Laura Brannelly, Laura Lewis and Susy
Ndaruhutse of the Developmental Leadership Program (2011) argue that
universities cannot adequately prepare leaders if they do not espouse the core
principles of leadership in their mission statements, their curricular content
and their classroom practices.
The
three authors point out that there is a “symbiotic relationship between higher
education and developmental leadership,” and higher education institutions need
to be clear about how their aims and objectives can promote good leadership
amongst their graduates. Developing the next generation of leaders, argue
Branney, Lewis and Ndaruhutse, starts with the types of skills and competencies
universities teach and embrace. Teaching methods must demonstrate
transformational qualities rather than perpetuate mechanical, top-down transfer
of knowledge.
Teachers
need to be mentors and role models to their students. Institutions of higher
learning themselves need to embrace and practice governance and management
models that they teach, as these are the competencies graduates will need to
demonstrate as they take up leadership roles. This point was also made by
Zeleza who observed that authoritarianism in the state reflected
authoritarianism in the university.
Students
need to be involved in the institution’s decision making process, habits of
practice that good leaders follow. A lot of the vandalism and violence that
have come to characterize Malawian secondary schools and universities in recent
years stem from a lack of meaningful and democratic involvement of students in
decision making.
Passengers no longer
As
Malawians debate the legacy left by the pioneering leaders, it will be
instructive to keep in mind the plethora of causes that have led to the
leadership crisis in the country. Some of these go back to the structures
bequeathed to us by colonial history, while some have arisen from the global
economic and political structures. The solutions, as suggested by all the
scholars discussed in this article, lie in rethinking the governance structure
of our universities, the curricula taught in these universities, and the
pedagogical methods used.
Mazrui
calls for a more Africa-centered curriculum with African languages given a
prominent role. He points to the need to recognize African models of knowledge
that have the same rigour and depth, outside Western models of science. Sawyerr
emphasizes the “primary, irreducible responsibility of the state” in funding
and maintaining high standards in the higher education system. Mamdani wants
the next generation of African intellectuals to be trained in Africa so as to
prepare them for African realities, while Zeleza looks to the “africanization”
of global scholarship, and the “globalization” of African scholarship.
Writes
Zeleza: “As intellectuals, we must articulate clear agendas for African
societies and people, especially as the continent encounters new processes of
globalization. These agendas must be rooted in the unfinished tasks of
progressive African nationalism—development, democratization, and
self-determination . . . Without strong, well-funded universities and research
programs, we will continue being passengers.”
Note: This article first appeared in the March-April 2013 issue of The Lamp magazine.
