Neoliberalism and University Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article reviews the history of university development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and discusses the impact of neoliberal policies. This will be followed by an examination of the problems facing universities in the region. The following questions will be explored: (a) Are the existing universities in SSA serving the development needs of the region? (b) Are these universities up to the task of moving SSA out of the predicaments it faces such as famine, HIV/AIDS, poverty, diseases, debt, and human rights abuses? Finally, the article argues that for universities to play a role in the development of the region, a new paradigm that makes university education a public good should be established

Historical Missionary Activity, Schooling, and the Reversal of Fortunes: Evidence from Nigeria

This paper shows that historical missionary activity has had a persistent effect on schooling outcomes, and contributed to a reversal of fortunes wherein historically richer ethnic groups are poorer today. Combining contemporary individual-level data with a newly constructed dataset on mission stations in Nigeria, we find that individuals whose ancestors were exposed to greater missionary activity have higher levels of schooling. This effect is robust to omitted heterogeneity, ethnicity fixed effects, and reverse causation. We find inter-generational factors and the persistence of early advantages in educational infrastructure to be key channels through which the effect has persisted. Consistent with theory, the effect of missions on current schooling is larger for population subgroups that have historically suffered disadvantages in access to education

U.S. relations with South Africa : an annotated bibliography /

Includes index.v. 1. Books, documents, reports, and monographs -- v. 2. Periodical literature and guide to sources of current information.Mode of access: Internet

Universities and social transformation in sub-Saharan Africa: global rhetoric and local contradictions

This paper's principal purpose is to explore the range of ways in which African universities act as public institutions - i.e. how they both are shaped by and influence the social, political and economic contexts in which they are situated. In particular, it considers the multiple dimensions, often resulting in tensions in contexts of poverty, instability and radical transformation, of African universities as actors in politics, civil society and the public sphere. Drawing on recent projects and discussions in which the author took part, the paper tries in particular to explain how the degraded state of most universities in the region which began in the late 1970s and into the 1980s should not be taken to mean that they had become irrelevant to the societies and polities in which they were embedded. Examples are offered of how higher education institutions, and especially the major public universities (often of colonial origin), have often remained key sites for upward mobility strategies, critique and mobilisation on behalf of political change even in the face of authoritarian and corrupt regimes, in contexts of weakened national economies, and even when higher education (primarily encapsulated in public universities) fell out of favour of multilateral and bilateral cooperation agencies. In conclusion, the paper discusses current initiatives by international donors and development agencies to revitalise higher education in Africa, and ensure an 'expansion of tertiary institutions constructed as sites for personal advancement and private benefit' (The World Bank 2002) and how their managerial and cost-effective orientations may thin out the crucial public good dimension of African universities