steps in policy change, while among others the analysis may have barely begun.

This is therefore a pivotal period in African university development. It happens to coincide with a seismic shift in the balance of political forces in sub-Saharan Africa. It remains to be seen whether or not the democratization debate results in radical and permanent changes in the political topography of individual states, or merely causes tremors and opens fissures. What is beyond doubt is that the universities of Africa, to a greater or lesser extent, had been actors in this debate well before it had formally been declared open by many state authorities, and they are certain to become more involved, in a variety of ways, as the debate proceeds. Not for the first time, some African academics are already paying a heavy price for their democratic convictions.

Not only are the universities, as major national institutions and citadels of opinion, bound to participate in the political debate, but it would be surprising if the policy discussions on university reform or restructuring were to be kept separate from the wider political issues. Among the questions already being raised on African campuses is the implications of political democratization for the governance of universities, both externally and internally. Another question, which is even more speculative, is how the management of public demand for higher education might be undertaken under more liberal and competitive political systems.

The crisis in African higher education mirrors the deep crises in national economies and national political systems. Not surprisingly, many African academic people are impatient with a merely technical response to the university crisis and argue the need for a re-examination of the developmental mission of African universities in the 1990s.

Most of this report discusses issues which are directly related to the mission of African universities, but there is no systematic treatment of the debate and no attempt to construct a new model of African university development. A single model is in any case inappropriate. In fact, phrases like `the African university' are wide of the mark. Diversity reigns in the African university community, as in African political economies, and what is needed are complex rather than unitary models of African university systems and their roles in the rehabilitation, reconstruction and development of their communities, countries and region.