How would you describe the state of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa

Introduction:

Mr. Chairman, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to speak to you about “Higher Education in Africa: Making a Link Between Intellectual Capital and Regional Development.”

As Administrator of USAID in the 1980s, I was engaged in these issues and as President of Michigan State University, an institution with a rich history of development work in Africa, I continued my interest and concern about African development. Now as president of NASULGC, an association of the largest U.S. public universities with a long and distinguished history of development work in Africa, I am deeply engaged in discussions concerning the role of higher education in development in Africa with growing concern about the declining role of higher education in the U.S. government development portfolio.

Mr. Chairman I want to thank you personally for your support and focus on a number of issues regarding Africa’s future from food aid, to agricultural development and now higher education. These are all intimately connected. My testimony today emphasizes the importance of higher education to African development.

Before I address the questions on which you asked me to comment, I want to share with you a very exciting development directly related to the issue we are discussing. Last week, on April 30, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced that it will collaborate with the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) to build African university capacity for instruction and problem solving through the Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative.

The Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative is led by NASULGC with the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Higher Education for Development (HED), and the American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC) as key partners. The goal of the Initiative is to strengthen African higher education capacity in science and technology for development in partnership with U.S. institutions of higher education.

USAID announced the $1 million grant during the two-day Higher Education Summit for Global Development at the U.S. State Department which drew 200 university presidents, government officials, and corporate and foundation leaders to Washington from around the globe. The USAID grant will fund 20 partnership planning grants of $50,000 to plan long-term collaborations between African and U.S. institutions focused on building capacity for instruction and problem solving in the areas of agriculture, health care, science and technology, primary and secondary education, business and other disciplines. The funds will go to the American Council on Education (ACE) with NASULGC and Higher Education for Development (HED) providing leadership for implementation of the grant. The entire $1 million will be used for partnership grants because NASULGC and others will bear the administrative costs.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also awarded a $100,000 grant to NASULGC to build the grant-making framework for the Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative.

In the future, the Initiative will seek substantial additional funding for long-term university partnerships focused on enhancing instruction and problem solving capacity in African universities. The Initiative has identified six priority fields of study upon which to focus capacity development efforts: agriculture, environment and natural resources; engineering; science and technology; health; education and teacher training; and business, management, and economics. Seven capacity building priorities have been identified within these academic fields in discussion with African universities: faculty development; curriculum and teaching; institutional leadership and management, marketing, advocacy and fundraising; research, technology and problem solving; financial diversification and resource mobilization; improvement of teaching and research facilities and equipment; and development of linkages with private, public and NGO institutions globally, regionally and locally.

While these are very promising developments, the needs in Africa for higher education capacity are substantial. It will take a concerted effort of the donor community including the World Bank, foundations and our partners in other counties working hand-in-hand with Africans to make meaningful progress. Congress also clearly has a role to play. We believe the development of African higher education is in the U.S. national interest and should be a policy priority for the region. Toward that end, Mr. Chairman, we urge you to consider legislation authorizing a program to provide long-term assistance to support and promote higher education in Africa, much as we have done on basic education.

Key points of the testimony:

Higher education is critical to economic development. It produces the teachers for basic education, health care workers to address HIV/AIDS and malaria, engineers to build infrastructure, business leaders to grow economies, scientists and technicians to create new technologies that solve development problems, and the leaders that support democratic ideals. In short, higher education produces vibrant economies, and social and political stability.
Africa faces severe challenges in higher education:

First, the success of efforts to support basic education has produced a wave of demand for higher education in Africa but the region’s higher education systems are not able to respond.
Second, funding for higher education from national governments has not kept pace with rising student demand and international donor funding has declined precipitously over the last two decades.
African universities, designed under colonial models to produce public servants, face structural challenges in connecting with their societies needs and have divisions between critical functions, such as research, teaching and extension, that hamper their capacity to serve societal needs effectively.

Africans have built and worked tirelessly to maintain institutions that function in the face of considerable challenges. Good people working against long odds. The fundamental constraints (listed above) have produced a number of symptomatic problems that have been identified in a broad consultation with Africans, consultants, and reviews of the literature:

¨ significant lack, in both quantity and quality, of faculty training capacity;

¨ lack of capacity to train leaders in governance and management of higher education institutions to meet the new challenges;

¨ problems of quality and relevance in curriculum;

¨ lack of capacity for financial diversification;

¨ weak research and innovation capacities;

¨ poor physical facilities and infrastructure;

¨ uneven access along gender, ethnicity and geographic lines;

U.S. universities have a long history of development successes. They have played a major role in developing human and institutional capacity and generating new technologies, both at home and abroad. Many of the challenges faced by African higher education are ones that are similar to those addressed by U.S. institutions in the past and present. Engagement should benefit both African and U.S. institutions.

Africa and the U.S. have and are building significant linkages economically, culturally and diplomatically. Successful national and regional partnerships will foster economic exchange and greater cultural understanding. U.S. universities need to build their capacity to successfully educate American students to facilitate those connections; connections that will build a safer and more secure world for both U.S. and African citizens.
Africa, faced with the challenge of building and reforming its higher education systems, and the U.S. facing a need for global competency in its citizens, can benefit from strong, long-term collaborative partnerships between their universities and colleges. Such activity should be a focus of USG international assistance to build the human and institutional capacity needed to sustain both African and U.S. development.
While higher education provides the greatest opportunity for economic growth, USG development funding has not focused adequately on strengthening higher education in Africa.
We ask the Congress to provide legislation authorizing $100M/year to support this effort.

Testimony

I. What benefits to the continent could U.S. support for the expansion and improvement of colleges and universities bring?

With growing interdependence, it is critical that countries have the institutional capacity to interact globally to solve problems and create opportunities for development, security, peace and justice. Economies and societies are now linked as never before and the ability to improve people’s lives rests substantially on the development of human skills and the capacity to develop and adapt technology appropriate to the needs of individual nations and local situations. Broad-based development and transformation in Africa requires significant human and institutional capacity development. Higher education institutions are vital to this process of developing and nurturing the human capacity, research capability and outreach programs required for equitable and sustainable growth and transformation.

“Higher education produces the entrepreneurs, the creative thinkers, the business leaders that generate economic growth and turn poor countries into prosperous ones. Tertiary education exercises a direct influence on national productivity which largely determines living standards and a country’s ability to compete in the globalization process.”[1]

The developing world and Africa particularly are facing a food crisis. Global demand for food, especially cereals, has sharply increased while supply has plateaued. In the short-term, we can potentially increase yields of food supplies by applying existing, and developing new technologies and practices to keep pace with the present and short-term projected global demand increases. But we need to think beyond the short term as well. In the longer term, by linking research and technology development with human and institutional capacity building – primarily the products of higher education – we can create the in-country capacity to solve future agriculture problems and foster national development. Properly executed this effort will grow economies, reduce rural and urban poverty, lower food prices, increase food supplies and provide better nutrition for child cognitive and physical development. Overall this process will stabilize societies, create allies for the U.S. and increase our national security.

Investing in higher education in developing countries is a critical component to long-term economic growth, stability, and poverty reduction. Investments in higher education promote technological “catch-up” and “leap-frogging,” allowing countries to gain ground on more technologically advanced societies and maximize economic output. To illustrate the economic growth potential of higher education on GDP, a one-year increase in tertiary education stock would raise steady-state levels of African GDP per capita by 12.2 percent due to factor inputs, potentially boosting incomes by 3 percent after five years, a significant feat considering the trend towards decreasing incomes in some African countries.[2]

Many African countries do not have the human resources, research capabilities and infrastructure targeted to adapt or develop the technology required for broad-based economic development. Higher education institutions are key to this process of developing and nurturing the human skills, research capability and outreach programs required to effectively utilize S&T for African development. Demand for higher education is growing at astounding rates, stretching even further the already strained capacity of higher education institutions. Higher education enrollment in Africa has, in fact, been doubling every five years, the fastest rate of increase in the world.[3] In order to be more effective, African higher education must adapt to the new environment of educational needs that is emerging in Sub-Saharan Africa. The challenges African higher education institutions face, discussed below, are many and require serious commitment and attention on the part of both African governments and international donors.

In sum:

Higher education builds human capacity to meet the challenges of this ever-changing world and creates opportunities for broad-based development.
Higher education generates and adapts knowledge and technology critically required for improving economic productivity and development.
Higher education provides a platform to engage with public, private and civil society stakeholders to apply knowledge and technology toward solving problems and creating new opportunities.
Higher education provides the means through which women can achieve positions of leadership and increase their economic well-being, thereby having a long-term impact on equality of opportunity for women.

II. How would you describe the state of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa and what are the major challenges facing African colleges and universities in terms of curriculum development, faculty and student recruitment and retention or other areas?

A group concerned with international development generally, and Africa specifically, which includes NASUGLC, the Partnership to Cut Hunger in Africa and others have gathered information about the challenges and possible opportunities facing African higher education through research and consultations with African leaders in higher education, U.S. colleagues and Congressional contacts, and other experts.

The major challenges of higher education in Africa stem from three principle factors:

1. Demand for higher education has been increasing at extraordinarily rapid rates.

2. Little investment has been made in African higher education for two decades now.

3. The structures of African institutions of higher education have not adapted sufficiently to changing contexts and labor force needs.

Exploding demand

In Africa, the demand for higher education has been increasing extraordinarily rapidly. Higher education enrollment in Africa has, in fact, been doubling every five years,[4] the fastest rate of increase in the world.[5] This is due to a fast-growing 18-year-old population cohort and an increasing proportion of that cohort achieving secondary level diplomas. In addition, economic growth in many African countries has also contributed to a growing demand for post-secondary education as more can now afford at least some level of higher education. Among the unresolved challenges is the need to expand tertiary education coverage in a sustainable and equitable way, creating opportunities for historically disadvantaged populations.[6] (In spite of rapid enrollment growth in the higher education sector, Africa’s higher education gross enrollment ratio (GER) - participation of the 18-23 years age-cohort - remains the lowest in the world around 5%, trailing South Asia (10%), East Asia (19%), and North Africa and Middle East (23%), another clear sign of the need to address this crisis.)

Lack of funding

Over the last two decades external development assistance to higher education has declined significantly as donors have focused overwhelmingly on funding primary and secondary education. This drop began in the early 1980s when the World Bank published a series of papers that argued that returns to primary and secondary education were much greater.[7] In addition, priorities shifted toward an emphasis on the delivery of goods and services, not long-term training. This donor perspective has shaped most of the sub-Saharan national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers that influence not only donor investment but national budgetary allocations as well. Furthermore, it has been difficult for most African countries to commit significant public investment to higher education due to other immediate problems and crises that require immediate attention and resources. Although we know that education correlates with mortality rates, there are always more immediate and obvious causes of mortality and suffering that are perceived to demand greater urgency.

The imbalance in funding between higher education and basic education must be addressed. Indeed, the quality of primary and secondary education in Africa suffers from the lack of capacity of African higher education institutions to produce high quality teachers, education leaders, supervisors and curriculum specialists. The impact of higher education extends well beyond primary and secondary teaching capacity, however. Broad-based development in Africa cannot happen without well-educated African leaders, a strong human resource base, and institutions that can produce the knowledge necessary to address critical local, national and regional problems and produce significant economic growth that will ultimately sustain the education systems without donor assistance.

Structural Issues

African university systems were created in a colonial model that produced graduates intended to serve in the public sector. In the first years after independence, this need for public sector servants was even greater. But over the years, the needs of African countries have changed radically. Yet, institutional structures have adapted little to these changes in context. African leaders have expressed strong concern about the need for their universities to develop entrepreneurs, business leaders, scientists, and other professionals. Research, education and extension are housed in separate institutions in many African countries which disconnects higher education from innovation and problem solving activities. There is a desire for closer links between African universities and national and international public, private and civil society sectors to make sure that universities are more relevant to the development of their societies.

These core problems underpin a variety of challenges that African universities face including:

1. Critical lack of capacity to address faculty shortages and quality concerns. Across Africa and across disciplines, on average, only 70% of the required faculty are at post. In some university departments only 30 to 40% of the total faculty requirements are currently met.[8] The situation is particularly serious with respect to the shortage of senior faculty at the Ph.D. level. This shortage of faculty and other staff is due to a combination of factors including the inability to attract and retain qualified faculty due to low wages and poor working conditions, the retirement of many faculty trained years ago when investments were greater, loss of faculty to HIV/AIDS. Institutions also face shortages of technical, administrative and management staff. The situation is crippling not only higher education institutions but also affects the other levels of education services, health care systems and overall economic activities. Africa must build its capacity to provide these human resources.

2. Governance, leadership and management. Poor management and governance practices and structures plague many institutions and further exacerbate the challenges faced by higher education in Africa. Management inefficiencies drain scarce resources away from the fundamental objectives of increasing access, quality and relevance of education and spread resources even more thinly. Academic leaders are rarely trained in the management of higher education institutions. Some areas where African institutions need particular assistance is in strategic planning, market research and advocacy, research management, financial planning and management, human resource management and performance management.

3. Problems of quality and relevance. Due to extreme financial austerity over so many years, quality of teaching, learning and research has declined. Universities now operate with overcrowded and deteriorating physical facilities, limited and obsolete library resources, insufficient equipment and instructional materials, outdated curricula, and teaching staff that often lack extensive training themselves. Due to lack of investment, universities also lack access to global knowledge networks and resources, which leaves them isolated, making it even more difficult to “catch up.” There is also widespread concern about the relevance of curricula and the overall mismatch between programs of study and labor market requirements. Practical instruction receives insufficient emphasis, and students have little opportunity to develop technical competencies, problem solving experience or communication and organizational skills.

4. Weak research and innovation capacities. Higher education institutions in Africa do not yet possess adequate research capabilities due both to a lack of funding (for investments in infrastructure, facilities, and equipment) and the colonial legacy of these institutions. While funding is critical, the institutional separation between education (in the universities) and the research in research institutions is a fundamental constraint on faculty and curriculum development and relevance of the higher education system to society. African universities, on the whole, generally do not play the important development role that universities play in the United States, generating and adapting new knowledge and technology.[9] Research skills are most commonly acquired during masters and doctoral training, but Sub-Saharan African universities have minimal graduate output. Research has often been neglected due to increased teaching workloads generated by enormous undergraduate enrolment expansions. These circumstances seriously constrain the building up of those elements of national innovation systems that are so essential for increasing national productivity including research capacity, university trained researchers and professionals, graduates with advanced technical and managerial skills, and dynamic university-industry linkages

5. Lack of capacity for financial diversification. Around the world, institutions of higher education must adapt to decreasing public funding and learn to diversify their funding sources. Higher education institutions in Sub Saharan Africa have limited experience, expertise and capacity in managing these challenges of financial diversification and resource mobilization.

6. Poor physical facilities and infrastructure. Higher education institutions in Africa have seen little or no infrastructure improvements in the last few decades, due to insufficient budgets and overdependence on public financing as discussed above. Infrastructures and equipment, such as the internet, libraries, classroom space, laboratories and textbooks are critical bottlenecks resulting in the deterioration of quality of education and learning. The poor state of facilities also affects the quality of research and its ability to contribute to societal development and progress.

7. Uneven access and low levels of enrollment in certain areas. Despite the tidal wave of new students, graduate level (MSc and PhD) student enrollments are still small. A great concern is also in the low enrollment figures in sciences, engineering and technology, and health fields, which are critically needed for innovation, knowledge generation and adaptation and overall national competitiveness. Less than 30% of students in higher education institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa are enrolled in the fields of agriculture, health sciences, engineering and technology and basic and applied sciences. Another challenge in sub-Saharan Africa is a significant gender imbalance in higher education. In 2004 of the 3.4 million total tertiary education student enrollment the proportion of female students was only 38% and the proportion of female teaching staff just 4%. In math, science and engineering, female student enrollment is particularly low.

III. What types of support could the United States give to African colleges and universities in order to help them provide a greater number of students with high quality education?

African university systems were created in a colonial model that produced graduates intended to serve in the public sector. While the needs of African countries have changed radically, resources have not been available to make responsive changes in the institutional structure and capacity. For African institutions to make these changes, it will require both resources and partnership with higher education institutions that have functioned in a mission-oriented environment, responsive to needs in the public and private sectors. The establishment of partnerships between American and African institutions of higher education is a tried and tested mechanism that has previously fostered significant of institutional capacity development in Africa decades ago when appropriately funded.

A new kind of partnership is needed now, based on mutual respect and solidarity, and rooted in a grounded analysis of what actually works. For Africa to end poverty, requires a partnership between Africa and the developed world, which takes full account of Africa’s diversity and particular circumstances and allows for African leadership in the identification of needs and opportunities.

After consultations with leaders from Africa and the United States, it is clear that partnerships among African and U.S. higher education institutions focusing on science and technology are an expressed interest of both African and U.S. institutions because of their perceived importance in economic, political and social development. This interest extends to a broad continuum of U.S. and African institutions including four-year institutions and community and technical colleges, both public and private, serving a diverse set of students.

African leadership’s interest in developing African capacity in science and technology is capsulated in the Addis Ababa Declaration on Science and Technology and Scientific Research for Development issued by the Heads of State of the African Union in January 2007. Prominent donor publications, including the report of the National Research Council to USAID in 2006, titled “The Fundamental Role of Science and Technology in International Development”[10] and others from the World Bank, the U.N., the Rand Corporation and other institutions, suggest that donors are aligning behind African governments on this vision.

Partnerships between African and U.S. higher education institutions have substantial benefits for American institutions as well. U.S. institutions need to incorporate international dimensions into their education, discovery and engagement programs to increase their excellence in this global world. This is especially true for improving U.S. institutions’ understandings of Africa.

Africa and the United States are becoming more interconnected through trade, investment, security, health, and cultural policies and programs. African exports to the U.S. increased by 40% and 23% in 2005 and 2006, respectively. About 22% of Africa’s exports go to the United States. U.S. exports to Africa increased by 15% and 22% in 2005 and 2006, respectively. U.S. direct investment in Africa has risen from $7 billion in 1998 to $18.5 billion in 2006 or about 13% annually. Africa had one of the highest annual GDP growth rates from 2000-2006 among world regions: higher than any region other than the CIS.[11] U.S. security interests are becoming more engaged in Africa, and cultural linkages between the United States and Africa are growing steadily, especially with the African Diaspora. The emergence of transnational health issues are also bringing the two continents closer together, as the ability to control, manage and eliminate various diseases and health challenges requires greater cooperation and collaboration between nations. New investments in security linkages between the U.S. and African nations will require that U.S. leadership be better educated about Africa for these linkages to be successful for both Africa and the United States.

Not only is there a critical role for higher education in economic development, but we now have new tools that make linkages among higher education institutions (within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world) more productive. Distance education opportunities are now available for African students to learn from among the best faculty in the world through a variety of distance education mechanisms. There are also expanding opportunities for research communities to grow and prosper across national boundaries through enhanced networks, communication methods and computing capacities. New communications technologies allow students and faculty in Africa to access databases, scientific journals and expanded knowledge systems around the world. Worldwide cell phone and video service can connect people as never before, expanding opportunities in terms of teaching, research and consultation. While these are valuable tools, the messages need to be adapted and relevant to Africa. Considerable investment is required to make U.S. and European courses appropriate for the African context. In the African continent context where spatial considerations are especially important, distance education can be an effective tool for reaching farmers and people in rural areas. Africa’s experience in managing the tidal wave of new students demanding higher education may well teach U.S. institutions about how to make higher education more cost-effective through the use of new technologies and techniques.

One of the clear conclusions from we have drawn from our fact finding process is the need to strengthen, expand and revitalize linkages between U.S. and African institutions of higher education with the goal of strengthening the development role of higher education and making institutions more relevant to national needs. Such an effort should focus on developing a program:

¨ to encourage and support mutually beneficial collaboration between African and U.S. higher education institutions, and

¨ to develop mechanisms for active communication between higher education institutions inside and outside the effort to promote the sharing of knowledge and experiences, facilitating learning and the adoption of best practices, and raising the visibility not only of the importance of higher education for Africa, but also the emerging solutions arising from these partnerships.

IV. Are there potential pitfalls to increasing aid to African colleges and universities?

Providing increased assistance to African higher education is essential and extremely positive step. There is nothing wrong with the concept but it must be carried out in a careful and thoughtful manner to ensure effective and efficient use of foreign assistance resources. In the implementation of such an effort there are some cautions described below.

Lack of African leadership in the development of partnerships. In the past, partnerships that were less successful often suffered from imbalance in decision-making. This inequity in the relationship could manifest itself in all aspects of the project. Successful development, reform and innovation in higher education will require an intimate knowledge of the local culture, conditions and economies of the higher education institutions and strong African leadership in the identification of needs and opportunities. Only if the context and the constraints are thoroughly understood and the African partners are collaboratively involved in making decisions about how to direct efforts will true progress occur.

Inadequate centralized management structure to ensure accountability and oversight. Multi-institutional projects that cross cultures and have a diverse array of objectives present a complex management challenge. To be successful they will need strong internal leadership and likely, external support to provide management guidance. A well organized central management structure for early monitoring, evaluation and guidance will improve the success of the any effort. Communication both within and outside the program will be essential.

Demand for wide coverage versus concentration in both topics and institutions. In any effort to improve the region’s higher education system on a limited funding resource, there is tension between breadth and depth of coverage in topic focus areas and in project funding (size versus number). There are strong pressures for inclusion both of disciplines and institutions but wide and thin may not yield the best overall result. For example initially focusing resources more narrowly to develop high quality results that can be replicated may be a more effective strategy for success.

Unified program versus collection of independent projects. The effort to enhance higher education will likely result in a range of projects. While the projects will have differences determined by their institutional partners’ needs and priorities, there is likely to be much commonality across projects. To capture the full experience at the program level and increase that capacity at the project level, project experiences must be shared, analyzed and adopted as appropriate between projects. In short the effort must be an integrated shared management and learning entity not just a collection of projects.

Difficulty in selecting successful projects up front. One of the most critical steps in developing a successful effort is to ensure the best projects are selected. Because these types of partnership projects are likely to be complex (many partners, disciplines, and diverse objectives) management and leadership will be critical components of success and the funding of planning grants will allow for strong management plans to be established. Planning grants (small and numerous) not only allow the potential projects the opportunity to pick good partners and establish appropriate relationships, but also allow the oversight entity the opportunity to judge the management skills of the projects leaders and the efficiency of their management structure. Planning is critical to these types of projects fully justifying investment up front to ensure quality in the end.

[1] World Bank 2002. Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education. World Bank, Washington, D.C.

[2] Bloom, D., Canning, D., and Chan K. (2006). Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa. World Bank Human Development Sector, Africa. [On-line]. Available: http://www.sciencedev.net/Docs/Higher%20Education%20and%20economic%20developmnet.pdf

[3] http://www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Factoids.html

[4] In sub-Saharan African countries higher education student enrollment has increased from 660 thousand in 1985 to over 3.4 million (over four-fold!) in 2005.

[5] http://www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Factoids.html

[6] In sub-Saharan Africa, female student gross enrollment ratio remained around 2% between 1995 and 2004, compared to 5% and above for male students. In 2004 of the 3.4 million total tertiary education student enrollment the proportion of female students was only 38% and the proportion of female teaching staff just 4%. In math, science and engineering, female student enrollment is particularly low.

[7] From 1985 to 1989, 17 per cent of the World Bank’s worldwide education-sector spending was on higher education. But from 1995 to 1999, the proportion allotted to higher education declined to just 7 per cent.

[9] Africa’s share of global scientific outputs has fallen from 0.5% in mid-1980’s to 0.3% in the mid-1990’s (http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev71249-201-1-DO_TOPICS.html ; Accessed )

[10] National Research Council of the National Academies 2006 “The Fundamental Role of Science and Technology in International Development: an Imperative for USAID.” National Academies Press, Washington DC,

[11] World Trade Organization: World Trade Developments, 2007