Introduction

The most serious risks run by a report such as this are over-generalization and over-simplification. They are invited by the nature of the assignment, with its inbuilt assumption that sub-Saharan Africa is an identifiable region with common characteristics, including a higher education sector in crisis. No doubt this is so, but another view must be kept constantly in mind.

Sub-Saharan Africa is endlessly diverse. Conditions vary across countries, within countries, and within universities. The condition of individual universities depends upon such broad factors as the presence of civil peace, the wealth and resilience of the national economy, the nature of the national political culture, the policy environment of higher education, and the scope and quality of external assistance. It also depends upon such specific factors as the vision, imagination, courage and managerial skill of Vice-Chancellors and their colleagues, the tenacity with which academic staff members are able to sustain academic values against the odds, the threshold of self-sacrifice among university people, the level of alienation or identity between students and the political leadership--and whether the water system works, power supplies fail, or roofs leak.

A general conclusion from this consultation is that it would be unwise for external agencies to write off the African universities as hopelessly and irretrievably in decline. It would also be unfair, considering that the main conditions which have brought the universities low have not been of their own making. Situations vary so greatly, country by country, university by university, faculty by faculty, and department by department, that a universal judgment would be simplistic and absurd.

The damage sustained by under-resourcing the universities during the years of economic decline, in almost all sub-Saharan African countries, has been massive and in some areas debilitating. In short there is a crisis. But crisis does not invariably mean collapse. The universities have shown resilience. Despite the brains that have drained out of them over the years, and the compromises they have been compelled to make with their own standards, the universities remain great national storehouses of trained, informed, inquiring and critical intellects, and the indispensable means of replenishing national talent. They have considerable reserves of leadership and commitment on which to draw. Impoverished, frustrated, dilapidated and overcrowded as they may be, they have no substitutes.

A general recovery in the quality of teaching, learning and research throughout the region needs a long-term perspective, but long-term requirements should not deter immediate action. There