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A Consultation On Higher Education in Africa
development of sustainable academic publishing in Africa. The
studies should examine the entire process, from writing and editing
to composing, printing, marketing and distribution, with special
attention to the prospects of the new publishing technologies and
the economics of academic publishing on a sub-regional and
pan-African scale. On the initiative of a sub-regional subject
association, the Association of University Teachers of Literature
and Language (ATOLL), NORAD has agreed to fund a feasibility study
for an academic press for the SADCC region. The Commonwealth
Secretariat's CHESS scheme provides for a pilot project to provide
a comprehensive range of services in academic publishing to one
university (not necessarily African), the results of which would be
monitored and made available to other universities.
Meanwhile, as
the University of Dar es Salaam has demonstrated, once funds are
available (in this case from the Dutch government) there are
existing possibilities for rapidly reducing the backlog of
unpublished manuscripts (37 titles at the University of Dar es
Salaam Press). Moreover, by arrangement with the United States and
Indian governments, PL140 countervalue funds in India have been
released to enable some University of Dar es Salaam Press titles to
be printed in India at a fraction of the local cost. This novel
solution may be available to other African countries.
University library development and
information technology
Along with
the need for staff development, the plight of the university
library systems drew most impassioned comment from African
university people and donors. The virtual standstill in new book
procurement in many libraries, and the running down of the journal
collections, have come to symbolize the decline in the African
universities. The knock-on effects include a drastic interference
in scholarly production, since African academics worth their salt
are unwilling to write for international journals on the basis of
five year old literature, and some decline to attend international
conferences for which they are too embarrassed to prepare papers.
Scholars know they are out of touch. Students, by contrast, have no
yardstick to measure the deficit in their own learning. Recent
African graduates studying abroad have to struggle to enter the
mainstream of current scholarship.
The situation
has become substantially more grave in recent years since the rapid
adoption of new technology for academic communication in the
advanced countries. African universities are now not simply out of
date in their library collections, they face the threat of being
marooned on the other side of a technological divide. All the
African universities visited for this inquiry were keenly aware of
their predicament and anxious to get out of it at the earliest
opportunity.
The Nigerian
federal universities are embarking on a major rationalization of
their library policy and upgrading of library technology under the
IDA/NUC program. The NUC is establishing a Directorate for Library
Affairs to coordinate the process. All universities have been
requested to establish core textbook and