Items for a research agenda

This consultation was undertaken in order to throw light on the state of African universities, and to receive advice on whether and how the Foundations and other donors could help the universities more effectively to safeguard and strengthen their core functions in a period of severe economic duress and political uncertainty. Research is by universal agreement a core function of universities. Research on higher education has the added merit, if it is well targeted, executed, and disseminated, of contributing to the self-knowledge of university communities and improving the chances that the options available to decision-makers will be better understood, and debated with more insight.

It is not surprising that proposals for research on the African universities were made time and again in discussion with university people, government officials and donor representatives. The need to know is acute and the current research output in this field by African scholars is low. The topics listed below are not presented as a comprehensive agenda but bring together the proposals which have been reported in previous chapters:

• re-examine the developmental roles or missions of the African universities in the '90s (pp. 7, 9)

• re-examine donor policies toward the higher education sector in Africa (p. 9)

• mount a major study of the Nigerian IDA project in the federal universities, from inception to completion, conceived partly as an analysis of donor-government-university relations, and partly as a means of feeding back information into the policy process (pp 9, 22)

• undertake research on university-government relations, including funding mechanisms or intermediary bodies (p. 21), and on internal university governance, including studies of state intervention (p. 24)

• establish an annual series on students' quality of life, to be monitored by student researchers, as a guide to policy on student affairs including finance (p. 25)

• study student housing finance and management, as in Nigeria (p. 25)

• study the experience of women in academic administration, as in Zimbabwe (p. 30)