Higher Education Expansion and Social Inequalities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conceptual and Empirical Perspectives

The development of higher education (HE) in sub-Saharan Africa has presented contradictory features and outcomes over the past two decades. On the one hand, the number of public and private HE institutions has increased in the present era of massification (where HE environments have reached almost universal access). This led to a diversification of academic programmes on offer, and enrolments surged to the point that sub-Saharan Africa experienced the fastest growth of all UNESCO world regions over the period. Yet on the other hand, gross enrolment rates (less than 10 percent on average in the region) remain by far the lowest and show slower progression than in other parts of the global South, as the rise in the number of institutions and in enrolment has not kept pace with population growth and increased social iii demand for higher education. These contradictions between dynamics typically associated with massified HE environments and features of highly elitist systems beg a closer examination of this process of expansion and diversification, and more specifically of how it has affected different socio-economic groups. Drawing on secondary data and policy material, and using three national contexts as case studies (Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal), the paper highlights how issues of inequalities and inequity in access to and participation in higher education were addressed by national policies in contexts of expansion and diversification. It then examines how the HE opportunities resulting from the expansion generated new inequalities at the levels of access to HE institutions and programmes, in student experience and in access to labour markets and social recognition. The case study perspective reveals how the relationship between growth and other dimensions of national HE developments are both context-contingent and shaped, or exacerbated by, international pressures. It allows a better understanding of the common challenges of African HE systems in terms of access “for whom?” “to what?” and “what for?” while avoiding excessive generalizations in conclusions and suggestions

Classement et déclassement des universités au Nigeria

Partant d’une critique des lectures comparatives et continentales des transformations en cours des systèmes d’enseignement supérieur en Afrique, cet article tente de restituer la situation actuelle des universités du Nigeria dans une trajectoire historique nationale spécifique. En particulier, il s’intéresse à la genèse des tensions observées entre une demande sociale diverse et un système d’enseignement supérieur uniforme depuis les années soixante-dix. Ces tensions sont aujourd’hui au coeur de polémiques et d’initiatives décrites dans l’article, qui traduisent selon l’auteur, autant l’acuité des enjeux sociaux, géo-ethniques et politiques nationaux autour de l’enseignement supérieur, qu’une « adaptation » aux exigences de la mondialisation.Upgrading and downgrading Nigerian universities. From the uniformity of admission procedures to a variety of strategies for bypassing them. – Based on a criticism of comparative interpretations of the changes under way in higher education in Africa, the attempt is made to describe the current situation in Nigerian universities as part of the nation’s history. Special emphasis is placed on the tensions observed between a diverse social demand and a uniform system of higher education since the 1970s. These tensions now fuel controversies and foster initiatives that reflect the importance of social, geographical, ethnic and political issues having to do with a national system of higher education and its adaptation to the requirements of globalization

Cooper, David & Subotzky, George. – The Skewed Revolution. Trends in South African Higher Education : 1988-1998

La contribution attendue de l’enseignement supérieur à la transformation de l’Afrique du Sud post-apartheid a fait l’objet d’un nombre considérable de publications. De même, la restructuration du système d’enseignement supérieur dans la foulée du changement politique se trouve au centre d’un large débat et de multiples réformes. Les enjeux de celles-ci dépassent largement les frontières de l’Afrique du Sud, qui constitue à bien des égards un laboratoire d’analyse de dynamiques également à l’o..

Classement et déclassement des universités au Nigeria

Partant d’une critique des lectures comparatives et continentales des transformations en cours des systèmes d’enseignement supérieur en Afrique, cet article tente de restituer la situation actuelle des universités du Nigeria dans une trajectoire historique nationale spécifique. En particulier, il s’intéresse à la genèse des tensions observées entre une demande sociale diverse et un système d’enseignement supérieur uniforme depuis les années soixante-dix. Ces tensions sont aujourd’hui au coeur de polémiques et d’initiatives décrites dans l’article, qui traduisent selon l’auteur, autant l’acuité des enjeux sociaux, géo-ethniques et politiques nationaux autour de l’enseignement supérieur, qu’une « adaptation » aux exigences de la mondialisation.Upgrading and downgrading Nigerian universities. From the uniformity of admission procedures to a variety of strategies for bypassing them. – Based on a criticism of comparative interpretations of the changes under way in higher education in Africa, the attempt is made to describe the current situation in Nigerian universities as part of the nation’s history. Special emphasis is placed on the tensions observed between a diverse social demand and a uniform system of higher education since the 1970s. These tensions now fuel controversies and foster initiatives that reflect the importance of social, geographical, ethnic and political issues having to do with a national system of higher education and its adaptation to the requirements of globalization

Cooper, David & Subotzky, George. – The Skewed Revolution. Trends in South African Higher Education : 1988-1998

La contribution attendue de l’enseignement supérieur à la transformation de l’Afrique du Sud post-apartheid a fait l’objet d’un nombre considérable de publications. De même, la restructuration du système d’enseignement supérieur dans la foulée du changement politique se trouve au centre d’un large débat et de multiples réformes. Les enjeux de celles-ci dépassent largement les frontières de l’Afrique du Sud, qui constitue à bien des égards un laboratoire d’analyse de dynamiques également à l’o..

Trajectories within international academic mobility: A renewed perspective on the dynamics and hierarchies of the global higher education field

With an ever-growing number of students and academics in physical or virtual circulation around the world, issues related to academic mobility have taken centre stage in interpretations of the internationalisation of higher education. This mobility and its implications have been approached from multiple perspectives, from host and home countries’ internationalisation strategies to individual experiences or the formation of transnational knowledge networks. Using the international higher education study trajectories of research active Mexican academics as a case study, this paper focuses on the under researched relationship between trajectories of South-North mobility and the stratification of the global HE field. It reveals how shifting patterns of individual study trajectories as well as overlapping sequences of study migrations from home countries contribute in no small measure to consolidating or destabilising the position of host countries within the field of global higher education, and therefore to its stratification

Convergence and local orders in the dynamics of change in higher education: a perspective from Saudi Arabia

The paper discusses the leadership and management challenges of a public university in Saudi Arabia from the perspective of academic managers. Based on a series of interviews at one of the regional universities established in the mid-2000s, the paper sheds light on one of those rarely investigated contexts where models of public management are arbitrarily patched on frameworks of institutional governance in the name of modernisation. The perspective of those tasked with implementing the modernisation agenda of the government within recently established universities is considered here, in an attempt to highlight the fortune of prescribed models of university governance and management in their confrontation with local social and cultural orders. A micro-level situationist perspective is adopted, drawing on the concept of local orders to identify local factors affecting the organisational capabilities and institutional status of a remote institution where the dominant cultural and social orders permeate workplaces more easily. Our unique perspective also reveals an increasingly diverse Saudi higher education landscape, and the challenges it poses to the government’s one-size-fits-all model of governance for public universities

Preschool strategies among the Saudi middle classes: mobilising capitals, negotiating cultural arbitraries and anticipating change

Parental choices in non-compulsory pre–primary education are typically analysed in relation to dispositions influenced by class-related cultural capital. In Saudi Arabia, where early childhood education is yet to be fully institutionalised, other local socio-cultural dynamics enter in the formulation and approval of choice. This article focuses on choices and their justification expressed by a group of mothers from the wealthy Saudi middle class encountered at a private preschool in the city of Medina. The article reports the complexity of strategies of distinction in a conservative society that tends to exacerbate the weight of others on individual decisions. In particular, the protective importance of social networks is revealed when singular models of education are chosen, which, albeit promoted by the government in the name of modernity, remain disapproved of by many across the social spectrum

Conceptions and expectations of research collaboration in the European social sciences: Research policies, institutional contexts and the autonomy of the scientific field

This paper investigates the interactions between policy drivers and academic practice in international research collaboration. It draws on the case of the Open Research Area (ORA), a funding scheme in the social sciences across four national research agencies, seeking to boost collaboration by supporting “integrated” projects. The paper discusses the scheme’s governance and its place within the European policy space before turning to awarded researchers’ perceptions of its originality and impact on their project’s emergence and development. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, we analyse the scheme’s capacity to challenge researchers’ habitual collaborative practice as well as the hierarchical foundations of the social science field. We relate the discourses of researchers, located in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, to such structural dimensions of the academic profession as, disciplinary cultures, institutional environments and national performance management of research careers. The paper argues that the ORA introduces novel mechanisms of power sharing and answerability in social sciences research capable of unsettling the autonomy of the scientific field. This analysis offers a new perspective on the often unquestioned superiority of the model of international collaboration induced by schemes such as ORA

Vocational higher education - does it meet employers’ needs?

This report is the outcome of a study funded by the Learning and Skills Council, the Department for Education and Skills, the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Council for Industry and Higher Education. The study was undertaken at a time when government policies for higher education included a new ‘push’ towards work-related higher education, and educational policies more generally were seeking to redress the balance between academic and vocational qualifications at various levels within the compulsory and post-compulsory education and training systems in England. One part of the study re-analysed existing data sources to explore the size and nature of vocational higher education provision in England. The main part of the study was an exploration of employers’ views (in a limited number of employment sectors) on the value of vocational higher education for recruitment and workforce development purposes. To complement the ‘employer view’ a limited investigation of the ‘direct consumer’ view (i.e. students on vocational higher education programmes) was also undertaken. The report highlights a series of key issues for policymakers, and also makes recommendations for improvements to data collection