is plenty of evidence that the morale of university communities
is highly sensitive to well-conceived, constructive action in
support of academic values, such as enabling academics to gain
access to the tools of their trade, and the means of academic
communication. Even major improvements in the physical environment
of universities, equally vital for students and academic staff, can
be made quite rapidly, given the provision of funds for repair and
maintenance, and essential furniture and equipment, as some
governments have recently discovered.
The
condition of the universities
One of the
abiding impressions of this consultation is the sense of loss,
amounting almost to grief, of some of the most senior professors in
the older African universities as they compare the present state of
their universities with the vigor, optimism and pride which the
same institutions displayed twenty or thirty years ago. It is not
just the universal regret of age at the passing of youth, nor the
sad awareness that a generation of unique academic pioneers has
almost run its course. It is also the grim knowledge that the
nature of the university experience today is profoundly different
for many teachers and students, so different and so inferior that
some wonder whether it can rightly be called a university
experience at all.
A student
describes a day in her university life. She rises before first
light, rolls up her sleeping mat and leaves the room in the hall of
residence which she shares with eleven others. The room had been
furnished for two students in the early years, then bunks were
installed to permit four to be housed. These days, four students
are official occupants and pay the rent. To share the cost, they
sub-let sleeping space to eight squatters. There is a water crisis
on campus, not an uncommon event. It is our student's turn to
collect water. She takes her bucket and walks to join the queue at
the standpipe. On a bad day it is hours before she is able to fill
her bucket and return, to wash and make tea. She decides whether to
take her single daily meal in the morning (one zero zero), noon
(zero one zero) or evening (zero zero one).
She goes to
class where it is standing room only. She is late and joins others
who crowd at the windows, looking in. It is difficult to hear the
lecturer, or see the board on which he is writing notes. Those who
cannot see do their best to copy from the notebooks of those who
can. After class, if the money is there, a handout can be purchased
from the lecturer. It is his sideline, a supplement to his salary,
which has been eroded by currency devaluation and inflation. The
lecturer recommends readings, but the titles are not in the
library.
These scenes
from the life of one African campus cannot be taken to represent
all, but the elements are familiar enough in most universities: the
student accommodation squeeze, the failure or decline of municipal
services, the financial privation of students, crowded classrooms,
teaching reduced to chalk and talk, teachers who must hustle for
additional income, libraries whose