Archives

Search Archives
In the Spotlight

Ford Foundation president on grant making in uncertain economic climate. Read More »

Recent Spotlights »

View all Archives - Education and Scholarship »

A Consultation On Higher Education in Africa







PREFACE

This report has been prepared for the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. The commission was initially made by the Ford Foundation, which has been engaged for some time on an internal review of its program of support to higher education in sub-Saharan Africa. The consultant was asked to recommend a strategy which might be pursued by the Foundation, and/or other donors, to strengthen higher education in Africa, particularly at the university level.

The reference to other donors took into account the establishment of a Working Group on Higher Education by the Task Force of Donors to African Education (DAE) which the World Bank has been instrumental in assembling. The Ford Foundation has made it possible for the Bank to appoint a higher education specialist to coordinate the Working Group's activities for a two year period. It was decided that the present report should be made available to the Working Group for discussion at its next meeting. This was done. The meeting took place in Accra in December 1990, hosted jointly by the Working Group on Higher Education and the Association of African Universities.

The Rockefeller Foundation had also been reviewing its support for African higher education. After discussions between officers of both foundations in Africa and New York, it was agreed that the sponsorship of this study would be shared. The Rockefeller Foundation has a special, but not exclusive, interest in strengthening quality research and graduate education in Africa, particularly in the sciences, technology, and related social sciences. It is concerned about the relative capacity and advantage of African universities, compared with research institutes and networks, in sustaining high-level research and postgraduate education.

The draft terms of reference asked the consultant to pay particular attention to the following areas of activity:

  • research on higher education, including student and faculty demography, the relationship between higher education and employment, etc.;

  • the governance and administrative management of universities, including training programs for higher education administrators;

  • the financing of higher education, including relations with ministries of finance and education, the creation of donor consortia, the creation or strengthening of development offices, income generation, etc.;

  • the intellectual life of the university, including the development and retention of faculty, and such related